Shift [Hardcover]

Em Bailey (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 22, 2012

Olive Corbett is not crazy. Not anymore.
 
She obediently takes her meds and stays under the radar at school. After “the incident,” Olive just wants to avoid any more trouble, so she knows the smartest thing is to stay clear of the new girl who is rumored to have quite the creepy past.
But there’s no avoiding Miranda Vaile. As mousy Miranda edges her way into the popular group, right up to the side of queen bee Katie – and pushes the others right out – only Olive seems to notice that something strange is going on. Something almost . . . parasitic. Either Olive is losing her grip on reality, or Miranda Vaile is stealing Katie’s life.
 
But who would ever believe crazy Olive, the girl who has a habit of letting her imagination run away with her? And what if Olive is the next target?
 
A chilling psychological thriller that tears through themes of identity, loss, and toxic friendship, Shift will leave readers guessing until the final pages.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Em Bailey is Australian but currently lives in Germany. When she’s not writing, she is generally getting lost, losing stuff, reading, hanging out with her friends and family, and listening to Radiolab podcasts. Like Olive, she doesn’t like leggings that look like jeans but has no problem with tofu schnitzels.

Em has written several books for children, but Shift is her first young-adult novel. You can visit her online at www.em-bailey.com.

Product Details

• Age Range: 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: EgmontUSA (May 22, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1606843583
• ISBN-13: 978-1606843581
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1.1 x 8.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,006,238 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Creepy and Great! June 28, 2012

By Nikki Wang

Format:Hardcover

Wow. Let me just say I was not expecting this when I started Shift. Honestly I only read it because my reading pile was empty. But once I started it, I was hooked.

Olive was popular, beautiful, fun, and bubbly, but when her dad left because of her suicide attempt, it all spiraled downhill. Suddenly Olive has a new life and is shunned, teased, and bullied by everyone including her ex-best friend, popular girl Katie. Only Ami sticks with her...but htere's something about her that's different. Something Olive never expected...
Newbie Miranda Vaile comes to town, niece of crazy Loony Oona and she's fresh meat for the vultures of high school. Yet somehow, she pushes everyone away and becomes Katie's best friend and confidant...but something creepy is happening because just as Miranda's looking more and more like Katie every day, Katie's becoming paler, sicker, and tired by the minute. Everyone isn't noticing it though, and soon enough Olive starts to doubt just what is real. Becuase, when you're going crazy yourself, who's to know what's real and what's not? Even when you know what's going on.

Em Bailey masterfully blurs the line between reality and imagination. I swear, there was not one time I was sure if what Olive saw and discovered was real or not! Em wrote beautifully, the prose leaning into paranormal then falling back into reality. The creep factor is high and I think that if anyone read this entirely at night...you'd definitely dream about it. Maybe not bad enough for a nightmare, but it will definitely leave an impression on its reader.

Olive was a great protagonist. Because of her problems, you, like I said, could never tell what was reality and what was her mind. I mean, Miranda would mouth words that Katie had said mere seconds later, act like Katie, dress like Katie, and slowly start to look like her. And even htough Olive suspected Miranda to be a shapeshifter, I couldn't be sure. Especially with what Miranda makes Olive realise. What was mind-blowing, though, was the fact that the most obvious things were the things that surprised me the most. When there was a twist, I would think "what? That's not possible!" But the more I thought about it, the more I realised how many hints were pointing at it.

There was romance! I know! I wasn't expecting it, but when the romance came I was pleasantly surprised! THe love interest was sweet and understanding and this was one romance where I loved the guy being kind and not mischevious and bad. The apocalypse is coming, isn't it? But yeah. Lachlan was just ADORABLE and I loved him!
*Complimentary copy provided. This does NOT affect my review in any way.*

2.0 out of 5 stars Shift April 4, 2013

By Jenni French

Format:Hardcover

Olive has been hospitalized for an unnamed mental illness, and now she has returned to school. She takes her meds, goes to class, tries to stay out of trouble. She spends a lot of time with her friend Ami. One day a new girl shows up at school, and there's something strange about her. Olive decides Miranda (the new girl) is a shape-shifter who basically sucks the personality and life out of a person. Miranda begins following Katie, the most popular girl, and soon Katie becomes really sick while Miranda takes Katie's boyfriend, Katie's followers, and eventually Katie's life. But no one believes Olive. They just adjust her meds and tell her to face her fears. Then Miranda turns her attention to Olive, and soon Olive feels the life draining out of her...

That description makes this book sound more interesting than it was. It was okay at the beginning, even with the creepy shape-shifting thing going on. About halfway through the book we discover that Ami is just a figment of Olive's imagination. Then Katie dies, and Miranda sics herself onto Olive. At that point I quit caring about what happened in this story. The thriller part of it wasn't thrilling enough, and the contemporary "chick lit" part of it wasn't realistic enough. It was just a weird mishmash of genres and it didn't really work for me.

This book might work for readers who like both thrillers and contemporary fiction, or fans of chick lit who want to break out of their typical genre. It does discuss mental illness, but doesn't give enough descriptions or information to be truly helpful.

1.0 out of 5 stars It drained the life out of me to finish it February 12, 2013

By Azul

Format:Hardcover

This book is so idiotic!

Olive knows that Miranda is bad news but still becomes her best friend. The second half of the book is about Olive following and doing everything Miranda says until the last 10 pages where she, well, you know, doesn't.

Why do high school books have to have the following:

#1) the most beautiful, perfect but bitchiest girl that every guy in school wants but

#2) the new guy who doesn't like her because, instead he likes

#3) the "weird" girl who just has "simple" hair, body or skin and who everybody else avoids?

Yes, this book is like that too. According to Olive, Katie is the most beautiful girl there is and every guy should fall for her. That is why she is very surprised when the new guy in the school, Lachlan, in a conversation they are having by the pool tells Olive "Hang on. [...] I just want to know a bit about you. About who you are."

Isn't that sweet? Ohhh! How romantic... crap! Every new YA is about the same high school love... manure.

Chilling psychological thriller? Absolutely not. I didn't feel any thrill in those 300 pages. I was bored to death and just finished the book to find out if Miranda really was what page 51 insinuated her to be.

So Miranda takes Katie identity and nobody realizes that. I mean, absolutely no one can see that Miranda now dresses, acts, and looks like Katie. What were the rest of the people in the book? Mannequins?

Anyways, the second half of the book is not about what the summary says. This part is a new twist that I didn't see coming and, although interesting, it became lame.

I exhausted. Shift drained me out. I need to go to sleep.