Opinion | Maybe In Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid

“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.”

 ☘    Opinião em Português    ☘ 

I made a promise to myself to read every published work by Taylor Jenkins Reid, after reading Daisy Jones and The Six and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.

I have little interest in reading contemporary romance, except Reid.

This author knows human emotion so well making us feel in our skin, our soul, what the character is feeling. She makes the most everyday chores/action seem interesting.

Another aspect of Reid’s novels? The message that comes with it.

Hannah, after being away for so many years trying to get a sense of her life, comes back to her hometown – Los Angeles – to live with her best friend, Gabby, and her best friends’ husband. To celebrate her return, they go on a night out with their friends from high school, including Hannah’s ex-boyfriend, Ethan. Little after midnight, Gabby asks Hannah if would like to go home with her or would she rather stay with Ethan. From there, the story unravels itself in a two paralleled universe, based on Hannah’s choice to go home with Gabby or staying with Ethan.

How far our little decisions affect our future? 

Do they change our life’s course? 

What is supposed to happen, happens regardless of our decisions? 

The typical “what has to happen, will happen”. We’re capable of taking the right decisions until we get to what is supposed to be. That’s the essence of the novel. The author knows what she’s talking about because she tells us so perfectly simple and straight forward, as if it’s a conversation. We can see ourselves taking the decisions that the characters took, even the simpler ones as if we were them.

Personally, I was a bit frustrated on several moments because I would have chosen to do certain things differently but that how things work: we can take a different decision but what our soul’s peace, what naturally belongs to us, will always come.

The plot is quite simple and has a ton of clichés but I only put up with it because it’s Reid we’re talking about. Her simple and straightforward writing full of real emotions, and a powerful message is reason enough to pick up and continue reading her works.

There are certain things that didn’t felt right, for example, Hannah’s parents, Gabby’s passivity in certain situations, but weren’t things that made me put the book down.

I can’t say that I loved it or hated it, it’s average as Forever, Interrupted. We can’t feel the explosion that Daisy Jones and The Six and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo brought.

I strongly believe that Reid is becoming even better as she writes. Making normal lives extraordinary.

Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid

My rating: 3 of 5 stars