Initial Impressions 11/9/13: 4.5 stars 
 It had a slow start, but was SUPER interesting. Definitely left me wanting book two!!! 
 Full review originally posted on The Book Addict's Guide 11/22/13: TANDEM was one of my most anticipated reads for this fall (which still doesn't explain why I waited until after it's pub date to read it even though I had it from BEA, but moving on...) because PARALLEL UNIVERSES. That is so up my alley. I had super high hopes for this book, counting on it to wow me when I was in a bit of a reading slump. Maybe that wasn't fair of me to put all my hopes and dreams on it, but hey. I think that happens to all of us every once in a while! 
 My first impression of TANDEM was... not quite what I hoped it would be. Being in a reading slump at the time, I was really afraid that I would be disappointed in it after its slow beginning. I know we had a lot of things to set up for the awesomeness to occur later on, but I felt like the first few chapters could have done without a lot of the details and lengthy scenes. We go through a whole prom scene, from the original asking to the dance all the way to the "afterparty" and while I understand the purpose of that throwing our two main characters together and setting up their relationship, I didn't think it needed to be as long as it was. 
 The difference between the two parallel universes that we see in TANDEM was a bit hard for me to grasp at first, but I actually blame that on myself. We go from Sasha's world -- Earth as we know it today - to Princess Juliana's world, an alternative universe in which the Last Common Event (or LCE) with our world was hundreds of years ago. My issue was that I was having a hard time picturing the world as modern. The royalty that existed in this universe just really threw me off since most of the books I've been reading involving royalty are historical fiction, high fantasy, or a combination of the two. That was just a mental block in my brain and I had a hard time shaking the notion that this alternate universe had a medieval feel because in many ways, it was even more technologically advanced than our own. 
 Once I really got into the meat of the story, I was so intrigued. Anna Jarzab has thought out not only each world and how they compare but the explanation of how the parallel universes exist, how people can travel between them, and she enables the reader to understand a science as complex this without it being over their head. I really thought she did a fantastic job with all of these technicalities and details. I was so fascinated and easily geeked out over how cool the whole concept was (also believing it to be entirely possible). 
 TANDEM also has many great plot twists, some of which lead you in gently and others which totally take you by surprise. Sasha's character becomes invested in something of a mystery which spans throughout the second half of the book. Another twist was a TOTAL shock to me, shaking up the characters' worlds and mine all at the same time and it totally took the book to the next level! 
 While TANDEM didn't 100% knock my socks off, it's definitely a very solid series starter. I think the exposition of the book seemed a bit lengthy and took away a bit of my excitement for what I was hoping would be a wild and fast-paced adventure. The story absolutely picked up but I feel like I'm getting more and more frustrated with books that have slow beginnings. I was hoping to be immediately pulled into the story and it just took me a while to get there. I'd still definitely recommend it but just be aware that it may take you a little bit to get into it!