A review by jeffreyreads
Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid
1.0
I tried. I really did. I wanted to read this book because the concept sounded really original and like a good contemporary. But...no.
Taylor Jenkins Reid reminds me of those authors that put out a new book at least twice a year if not more, and because they're just spitting out books to please their publishers, the books themselves have crappy, surface-level stories. Like those romance books you pick up for $10 in a pharmacy. This is exactly what Maybe in Another Life brought to mind.
I get the distinct feeling that I'm supposed to feel bad for Hannah Martin, the book's whiny, privileged and annoying protagonist. She's lived in six different cities since college and doesn't know what she wants to do with her life. Then she's sleeping with a married man, and somehow she looks for sympathy from the reader because she hasn't found a "good man". Hey lady, no one was forcing you to sleep with the married man, and you continued to do it. But it's also important to point out that all of these story details are quickly explained by Hannah within the book's first 25 pages. All Taylor Jenkins Reid did to create her characters was have Hannah give a long-winded, cliché description of them that you could find in a thousand other better books.
These characters have no depth; I feel like they are just people with a commonplace name. Reid takes no time to build her characters as people; she just jumps into the story she wants to tell with them, which was an original concept that was unfortunately wasted on Reid's weak foundation of a novel.
Taylor Jenkins Reid reminds me of those authors that put out a new book at least twice a year if not more, and because they're just spitting out books to please their publishers, the books themselves have crappy, surface-level stories. Like those romance books you pick up for $10 in a pharmacy. This is exactly what Maybe in Another Life brought to mind.
I get the distinct feeling that I'm supposed to feel bad for Hannah Martin, the book's whiny, privileged and annoying protagonist. She's lived in six different cities since college and doesn't know what she wants to do with her life. Then she's sleeping with a married man, and somehow she looks for sympathy from the reader because she hasn't found a "good man". Hey lady, no one was forcing you to sleep with the married man, and you continued to do it. But it's also important to point out that all of these story details are quickly explained by Hannah within the book's first 25 pages. All Taylor Jenkins Reid did to create her characters was have Hannah give a long-winded, cliché description of them that you could find in a thousand other better books.
These characters have no depth; I feel like they are just people with a commonplace name. Reid takes no time to build her characters as people; she just jumps into the story she wants to tell with them, which was an original concept that was unfortunately wasted on Reid's weak foundation of a novel.