Out of Body by Nia Davenport

Welcome Back, Booklovers! I read The Blood Trials by the same author writing as N.E. Davenport and knowing the love she has for the YA genre I was interested in her YA debut. It's a genre change for her as well since Out of Body is a thriller. I haven't had the best of luck with YA thrillers the past few years but I'm always open to trying new ones and it helped that this was from an author I already enjoyed. So thank you to Nia Davenport and HarperCollins for giving me the opportunity to read this early in exchange for an honest review. You can purchase the book here. 

Megan just wants to fit in with the cool kids. So when her new friend LC urges her to try molly at a party she does against her better judgement. Megan passes out and when she comes to she feels different. Then when she heads home she sees herself staring back at her. Only it can't be her. She soon realizes she's occupying LC's body and LC is inside her body. It doesn't take Megan long to realize she's been duped but not before she ends up in another town pretending to be Jade, a girl who has been missing for the past three months whose body she is currently occupying. Megan must race against time to switch herself, LC, and Jade back to their original bodies.

One thing Nia succeeds in is writing very readable fast-paced prose that keeps readers turning the pages. The answers to Megan's questions do come a little bit quickly thanks to Tik Tok and it's hard to connect with her at first do to how quickly the body swapping happens but overall it's a thrilling story. That feeling of unsettledness builds the further into the book readers get. There's a little bit of romance but not so much that it detracts from the plot. And themes of friendship and body autonomy are explored throughout this book. Teens who are interested in sci-fi but want something that's not so science heavy to ease them in will appreciate this. Outside of falling for LC's peer pressure Megan is genuinely a smart and resourceful teen which is a much needed contrast to the more impulse driven characters that usually dominate these types of stories. I also appreciated getting insight into LC's head at different points while trying to figure out the mystery behind the switch.