She Wouldn’t Change a Thing by Sarah Adlakha – 304 pages
ARC from Forge and Netgalley for an honest review.
Book Blurb:
A second chance is the last thing she wants.
When thirty-nine-year-old Maria Forssmann wakes up in her seventeen-year-old body, she doesn’t know how she got there. All she does know is she has to get back: to her home in Bienville, Mississippi, to her job as a successful psychiatrist and, most importantly, to her husband, daughters, and unborn son.
But she also knows that, in only a few weeks, a devastating tragedy will strike her husband, a tragedy that will lead to their meeting each other. Can she change time and still keep what it’s given her?
My Review: 4 stars
She Wouldn’t Change a Thing was a wholly unique interpretation of time-travel mixed with living alternative lives. This type of book, that recognizes the possibility of living an alternative life or time looping, has been extremely popular lately. Some examples that I’ve most recently enjoyed are The Midnight Library, The Love Proof and Half Life. This premise had me pumped to start and I dove in headfirst.
The first quarter of the book had me riveted and glued to the pages. It was straightforward and the mysterious patient Sylvia brought on a lot of drama. Suddenly the story goes awry, and Maria is back in her childhood home, rather than at home, with her husband, her two girls and pregnant with her third child. I had no understanding of the why behind this was happening, or the how she was going to get back to her family. Of course, her parents think she nuts when she’s upset about not being pregnant and asking after her husband and kids.
Maria, a psychiatrist, is trying to unravel what is happening to her, and gets hints from another patient and a special doctor who comes to see her. At this point, I’m invested and just starting to figure things out when another twist hits and we learn that something tragic has happened to her.
I give kudos to the author for giving the reader the space and time to figure things out, but sometimes I was frustrated, and I just wanted to talk to someone about it. It was then that I had an aha moment, if I’m this frustrated, the character had to be at her wits end!
This book makes you think about your life and if you could go back in time and stop a tragedy, would you? And what if stopping that tragedy changed the overall trajectory of your own life? The story all comes together in a beatific and meaningful way. I definitely enjoyed this book and cannot wait until August so I can discuss it with other readers.
Quotes I liked:
Quotes from an advanced copy and may differ from final copy.
Imagine each person being a planet. One cycle is one lifetime, and we’re spinning through these lives, interacting with people at various times and places throughout space. But every once in a while, an astroid or comet or some other space debris comes along and crashes into a planet, knocking it off its axis and back in time.”
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