Maybe In Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid – 350 pages
Book Blurb:
At the age of twenty-nine, Hannah Martin still has no idea what she wants to do with her life. She has lived in six different cities and held countless meaningless jobs since graduating college. On the heels of leaving yet another city, Hannah moves back to her hometown of Los Angeles and takes up residence in her best friend Gabby’s guestroom. Shortly after getting back to town, Hannah goes out to a bar one night with Gabby and meets up with her high school boyfriend, Ethan. Just after midnight, Gabby asks Hannah if she’s ready to go. A moment later, Ethan offers to give her a ride later if she wants to stay. Hannah hesitates. What happens if she leaves with Gabby? What happens if she leaves with Ethan? In concurrent storylines, Hannah lives out the effects of each decision. Quickly, these parallel universes develop into radically different stories with large-scale consequences for Hannah, as well as the people around her. As the two alternate realities run their course, Maybe in Another Life raises questions about fate and true love: Is anything meant to be? How much in our life is determined by chance? And perhaps, most compellingly: Is there such a thing as a soul mate?
My Review: 4 stars
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Maybe In Another Life is the perfect chick-lit novel that hit the spot after the heartbreaking and depressingly good book I had just finished. One more example of why I love reading, there’s a perfect time for every book to be read!!
As in most women’s fiction, this book follows the typical blueprint of two friends whose romances go awry, followed by an even bigger climatic problem and then of course, we end with some type of resolution. What set this story apart however, was how the chapters switched back and forth for alternating plans of action and how each plan would have eventually played out.
These duel storylines kept the story intriguing and confirmed, or perhaps confused, the reader’s relationship with fate, controlling situations or a higher being’s ultimate plan for us.
I did take away some sage advice for making decisions, and that is that any decision is just that, a decision, not the only decision. Obviously it works for the more simplistic questions…but still, it helps take the pressure off for those of us who can’t make choices to quickly.
Quotes I liked:
I know there may be universes out there where I made different choices and they led me somewhere else, led me to someone else. And my heart breaks for every single version of me that didn’t end up with you.”
-“That’s what you do when you want something. You don’t look for reasons why it won’t work. You look for reasons why it will.”
-“I think I have to believe that life will work out the way it needs to. If everything that happens in the world is just a result of chance and there’s no rhyme or reason to any of it, that’s just too chaotic for me to handle. I’d have to go around questioning every decision I’ve ever made, every decision I will ever make. If our fate is determined with every step we take . . . it’s too exhausting. I’d prefer to believe that things happen as they are meant to happen.”
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