*I was given a copy of I Loved You in Another Life in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to Bonnier Books UK and David Arnold*
Synopsis:
Evan Taft has plans. Take a gap year in Alaska, make sure his little brother and single mother are taken care of, and continue therapy to process his father’s departure. But after his mom’s unexpected diagnosis, as Evan’s plans begin to fade, he hears something: a song no one else can hear, the voice of a mysterious singer…
Shosh Bell has dreams. A high school theatre legend, she’s headed to performing arts college in LA, a star on the rise. But when a drunk driver takes her sister’s life, that star fades to black. All that remains is a void—and a soft voice singing in her ear..
Over it all, transcending time and space, a celestial bird brings strangers together: from an escaped murderer in 19th century Paris, to a Norwegian kosmonaut in low-earth orbit, something is happening that began long ago, and will long outlast Evan and Shosh.
Review:
This is always such a shame to say, but I couldn’t finish this book. I made it 40% through and I feel like absolutely nothing happened other than learning about the two traumatic events the main characters went through. I get why these were mentioned a lot, but it seems like they were their only personality traits, you literally learn nothing else about them.
The actual writing seemed good and I did find I was making fast progress but when I’m zooming through pages and the book is moving at less than a snail’s pace, that’s not good.
The flashback scenes didn’t help with this and honestly, I skimmed a few of them because I just didn’t really get what was going on. It’s not made very obvious that these people you are reading about back in the 19th century or whenever it takes place, are supposed to be Evan and Shosh in different lives. If you read the synopsis of the book it makes more sense, but not everyone does, which I know is a bit strange to say, but they don’t. They’ll see this beautiful cover and just assume it’s a nice romance, but it’s not.
There isn’t anything inherently wrong with this book, nothing problematic that I came across, so that wasn’t a factor in me putting it down. It was more that I was bored, not much was happening and honestly, it’s a bit depressing. I wasn’t expecting this to be super happy or anything but not one single happy thing happened in almost half the book and it was really bringing my mood down.
If I wasn’t so busy at the moment I probably would have given this book more of a chance, but I don’t have time to waste on books I’m not enjoying.
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