Persistence of Memory by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

Erin Misrahe is a sixteen year old girl with a problem. Though she tries to pretend to be normal on the outside, she's only been out of the insane asylum for a year. She was sent there for having episodes- episodes where she claimed to be a different person entirely- a woman named Shevaun, who is violent and attacks people and destroys pictures of herself- or Erin, that is to say.

Erin wants desperately to be normal, and it seems as if she finally might get her wish. She's been going to a normal school, is making normal friends, including a new girl named Marissa who actually seems to like her.

But Shevaun isn't just an alter-ego, she is a real person, a vampire. And now Erin's episodes are having the exact same affect on Shevaun that they once had on Erin. And when Shevaun's lover, the witch known as Adjila, must tell her of the human who shares this near-impossible link with her, and Shevaun isn't going to be happy.

Back at home, Erin runs into an old friend from the Asylum who met Shevaun on one of "her" rampages. But when he meets the real Shevaun, will she remember him or kill him, and kill Erin as well to put an end to the episodes that have them switching bodies- or switching consciousness, without warning?

But why is Erin afflicted with this problem, and how did she and Shevaun become entangled in the first place? Is there any hope of separating them, or of saving both of them to live normal lives afterwards? Will Erin even survive an encounter with a woman she has always thought of as her Alter-Ego?

This was a pretty amazing story to read, as the readers know the answer to who Shevaun really is before Erin ever does, but the deeper mystery remains: how did Erin get in Shevaun's head and/or vice versa? And how and why are they exchanging personalities and memories. Is Shevaun just a construct of Erin's mind, or is Erin a construct of Shevaun's?

Needless to say, the reader starts out identifying with Erin, but by the end of the book, you come to identify with both characters. The reasons for how and why the two heroines crossed paths, and how exactly this state of affairs came to be is examined, although the reasons why may have as much to do with magic as anything else. Apparently, memory images of Shevaun live in Erin's head, and to assimilate each back into their own minds, one must fight and kill or absorb the others. I found the climax of the book fascinatingly bizarre, and the ending just as strange as any book I had ever read.

But I did like it, and I did find the answer to the question fascinating. I'd like to read more about Erin somedau, even if Amelia Atwater-Rhodes never writes two books about the same character or characters- at least, not in the ones I have seen. But for the whole strange and twisted setup, I recommend this book unashamedly. It was strange, it was weird, and I literally couldn't stop reading.. Recommended.