I would have given this 2 stars only I can't stop reading this series so I guess it warrants another star for being compelling.

Otherwise, it's the kind of book that makes me crazy with not being able to suspend my disbelief. You'll notice I tagged it fantasy even though it definitely wants to be sci-fi. Also it's a young adult novel, which isn't its fault, I just tend to be irritated by young adult protagonists.

So first, the main character is a girl (Audie) who is terrible at math but great at physics. So already, I don't believe her. I'm sure you can understand physics to a point without math, learn the theories and whatnot in plain language (that's what I do), but I seriously can't imagine being able to actually BE GOOD at physics, especially in a university setting (which is where Audie wants to go), without understanding the math behind it. Someone, please, prove me wrong, it just doesn't seem possible to me given that physics IS MATH.

The next thing is that Audie somehow figures out (using her unparalleled physics skills, I assume) that "changing your vibrations" can catapult you into an alternate universe. The way she changes her vibrations is by meditating. And she has to be meditating at the same time as her counterpart in an alternate universe is meditating. Which doesn't seem all that hard, so my question is, how come this hasn't been documented before in all of human history? Audie literally disappears when she goes to the other universe, in a human history full of spirituality, I can't imagine that there weren't a lot of people disappearing and coming back with stories of alternate universes. And you don't even have to be good at meditating, Audie had only been doing it for 6 months before it worked for her!

She finds this professor that all the other physics professors laugh at because he does fringe research on vibrations and shit, and in his lab is a grad student who hooks polygraph machines up to plants to measure their stress levels (as if plants show stress in the same way that people do). So really, I'm thinking, yeah, this guy should probably be laughed out of the physics conferences, except that his research turns out to be right, and they explain the fact that he's not respected by claiming that cognitive dissonance and fear is causing the other physicists to not believe the proof that he's showing to them.

Audie meets her alternate self, Halli, who is exactly like her genetically only she was raised to be an adventurer and is therefore buffer and better at problem-solving. I'm assuming this means that their universes split at least just after they were both born, but that's wrong, because their parents are totally different too. So their parents, despite their crazy-different personalities, still managed to get together and have kids at exactly the same time with the exact same gene configuration. I know, I know, infinite universes contain infinite possibilities, it just seems KIND OF CONVENIENT.

And then Audie is also mooning over this love of her life, her best friend's brother, who is dating a caricature of an annoying person. He's the best most selfless and wonderful guy in the entire world and Audie has never told him that she into him, she just licks spoons that he's used when he's not looking. This is where I start to zone out because I hate reading about mooney love-struck teens.

Audie has adventures with Hallie in the alternate world and then shit goes down, right into a serious cliffhanger. At which point I need to decide: do I walk away from this series, or double-down and read three more books? Despite all of the above, the cliffhanger was really serious and amazon's one-click purchase thing with the kindle app is really dangerous so now I'm reading the omnibus.
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*I received this book through Goodreads first reads.*

I enjoyed Robin Brande's version of parallel worlds and how one girl is able to travel from her dimension into another. I thought it was very original that she mixed mediation and even astral projection with science to create the portal for Audie to travel through. I'm looking forward to starting her second book in the series. ( )

Budding astrophysicist Audie Masters makes the greatest discovery of her time when she figures out how to jump into a parallel universe…and meets her other half! In this other universe, Hallie Markham is a famous world traveler, and Audie has a serious inferiority complex as she unravels the extent of her physics discovery…

Robin Brande takes readers into a new dimension—literally—with her YA sci-fi, INTO THE PARALLEL. While various elements of the story, such as plot and characters, don’t feel as tight as her YA contemporary novels, INTO THE PARALLEL is nevertheless an enjoyable story that draws only lightly on advanced scientific concepts.

The majority of INTO THE PARALLEL unfolds through dialogue: Audie talking to Hallie and trying to figure out what’s going on, Audie talking to the professor, Audie lying to her mom…really, the amount of information that’s revealed through stationary dialogue is rather disconcerting, as you realize that there’s not much going on in terms of plot. Due to the talky nature of the story, little seems to be at stake: about halfway through the story, I found myself wondering, okay, so are we ever going to get to the gritty conflict? Alas, I felt like no such thing ever appeared—INTO THE PARALLEL was really just an exploration of a new situation, with little else driving the story.

The characters all seem to suffer from various symptoms of character flatness. Audie is a pretty straightforward protagonist, but sometimes she bugged me because her thoughts and behavior were at odds with her supposed intelligence. Honestly? This is one girl who will not be getting into Columbia, her dream school—and if she does, I will be tempted to chalk it up to fictional wish fulfillment (sigh). Hallie’s unwillingness to draw attention to herself and her accomplishments is at least consistent and admirable, if a little boring. As for Audie’s love interests, well, not much distinguishes them either. I feel like the character development relied too much on dialogue, at the expense of actually allowing readers’ connections to the characters, and the characters’ connections to one another, to unfold more naturally.

INTO THE PARALLEL tackles the fascinating possibilities that quantum mechanics and string theory offer, but it does so in a way that is rather elementary: in fact, the story could’ve done without the astrophysics element and still worked. Therefore, I’d say that it is a less sci-fi and more just a series of events that unfolds in parallel universes. Nevertheless, I give Robin Brande credit for all her research into this fascinating topic, and for writing a killer of a cliffhanger ending that, fortunately, can be immediately remedied, as the sequel is now out online. Will I be reading it? Hmm. Perhaps. INTO THE PARALLEL was lacking in a number of elements that are important to me in an enjoyable and well-written story, but everyone has those few authors they make exceptions for, and Robin’s one of them for me. ( )

Have you ever wondered if there are "copies" of you in alternate realities? This novel answers that very question. The main character is somewhat of a prodigy, she is forever inquisitive and has a tendency for getting herself into tight situations. When she finds her parallel self living in another reality, she has to explore the other's life. However, things are literally not always what they seem. The main character is in more trouble than she realizes, the reader follows this exciting story through the ups and downs. The main character is amusing and entertains the reader. The plot itself is very different and is sure to please any budding science buff. This novel is recommended for young adults/teens who enjoy science fiction. ( )