I was bored one day and I tend to get into trouble when I’m bored (because I morph into a 5-year-old and pull all the pots and pans out of the cupboards for a homemade drum kit) and decided to do research for a blog post I was writing on a book about twin sisters. And I discovered something. They should rename Google Crack Cocaine because that’s what it is. I’m never capable of looking up one thing on Google. I look up one thing and that leads me to five other things (and more than half the time none of the things are remotely related) and the next thing I know it’s dark out and I’ve forgotten to get dressed and go to work. Well, I make it to work but I usually spend the morning thinking of all the stuff I learned.
So the last thing I was looking up was twins and Google was kind enough to lead me to Doppelgangers and every other kind of myth about twins (or my favorite, something called Capgras Delusion which sounds hilarious but is a condition where you think someone you know has been replaced by an identical person pretending to be a loved one). Little did I know that the information on Doppelgangers would soon come in handy….
In Gretchen McNeil’s novel 3:59 Josie Byrne’s life is falling into chaos. Her parents are getting a divorce. Her scientist mother is working long hours on a top-secret experiment, ignoring Josie and becoming a completely different person. Josie’s boyfriend Nick has become withdrawn and distant. People are being killed along a wooded path, their bodies torn apart and scattered. Parents divorcing, a distant boyfriend, and unexplained murders. That’s enough to make me want to find a portal to another version of my life.
Jo’s life, on the other hand, is over the top wonderful. She has a boyfriend named Nick who lavishes her with adoration and her parents are happily married. There’s just one thing. Josie and Jo are Doppelgangers and their lives overlap every twelve hours at 3:59. Seeing that Jo seems to have this fabulous life, Josie wants to swap lives for a day. Jo agrees. And what happens next is no Parent Trap.
Josie finds out that Jo’s “perfect” world has shadowy creatures that hunt at night and eat people. They swoop down and eat them up. Gross but cool. Josie tries on Jo’s life for a day but is ready to get back to her own world, her own life (no matter if it’s screwed to hell and back). One major problem: Jo has sealed off the portal. She doesn’t want to go back to her own life. Jo’s kind of a jerk. I wanted to use another word but I get into enough trouble on a daily basis for using that word so I’ll save it for a rainy day. When I haven’t gotten into too much trouble. Stop laughing.
Will Josie be stuck in the other world, hunted by the gruesome but awesome shadow monsters or will she make it back to her own world? The mysteries in this book go way deeper than this, however. There are mad scientists, parallel universes, teenage angst (which seems to happen in all parallel universes), gory dismemberments, redemption, insane asylums, and forgiveness. Who knows, maybe we all get a case of Capgras Delusion now and again. I hope that’s my co-worker over at the copier. It could be someone pretending to be her.
Be sure to visit A Reading Life for more reviews and news of all things happening at the Everett Public Library.
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