The Other Life by Ellen Meister
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)
Release Date: 6th December 2011
Rating: 4/5
Source: Received from the publisher for review. Thank you!
Buy: Amazon UK | Amazon US | BookDepository
Publishers Summary:

If you could return to the road not taken…would you?

Quinn Braverman has a perfect life, with a loving husband, an adorable son, and another baby on the way.

Quinn also has an ominous secret: she knows that another version of her life exists…one in which she made totally different life choices. But she’s never been tempted to switch lives-until a shocking turn of events pushes her to cross over, and she discovers the one person she thought she’d lost forever: Her mother.

But Quinn can’t have both lives. Soon, she must decide which she really wants-the one she has…or the other life…

From the outside looking in Quinn’s life seems ideal. From her wonderful husband to her adoring son she lives comfortably in a beautiful home with her happy family and another daughter on the way. When the news comes that her daughter may be less than perfect the pieces of her life slowly crumble away reminding her of how desperately she misses the mother who committed suicide just a few years prior. Just when all hope seems lost she’s suddenly aware of an “escape route”, an alternate choice and life that includes her living breathing mother but doesn’t include her husband and son. Will she choose to stay or venture to the other life permanently? Only her mother may be able to help.

The Other Life was to me a book about coming to terms with the death of Quinn’s mother and also choosing to live the life she had been given. Who hasn’t wondered about a choice here and there? It’s as simple as thinking about the phrase, “the grass is always greener on the other side”. The question comes down to whether it truly is greener on the other side, or in Quinn’s case her “other life”? Her choice, in my opinion, was an open and shut case in the beginning, but as the novel progressed I grew to sympathize with her struggle.

To be honest, when Quinn started talking about her life before meeting her husband Lewis I couldn’t see the appeal. Her ex-boyfriend Eugene was neurotic and borderline obsessive about her. I simply didn’t see the appeal in switching from a loving family to some guy who was basically crazy, not to mention much older than she was. Sure he had loads of money and was extremely successful, but I guess that just doesn’t work for me. It wasn’t until she discovered that in her other life her mother was still alive that things started to progress for me.

Being a mother and a daughter as well as someone who has lost a close friend to suicide it was easy to relate to Quinn & her struggles. Coming to terms with the sudden death of someone that important to you is difficult enough without also wondering why they would choose to take their own life. Suicide is never something easily explained or dealt with and Quinn’s mother Nan is no exception to this. It was interesting for me to see Quinn struggle between traveling to her “other life” and staying within her own for those very reasons. She loved her life and her family, but needed answers and comfort. Who wouldn’t want to talk with their mother one more time no matter the cause of death? As a mother now I can’t tell you how many times I’ve called my own mother for the simplest of questions and despite our differences at times I don’t know how I’d cope with things without her.

The Other Life by Ellen Meister was one of the most thought provoking novels I’ve read in a long time. Dealing with heavier issues like motherhood, suicide and mental illness were tackled easily by the addition of the magical realism Meister incorporated through the use of the portals Quinn travels through. It’s definitely a novel I’d recommend to readers who might enjoy a heavier more intense story line but still love authors like Cecelia Ahern and Sarah Addison Allen. Quinn’s relationships with her mother and her son make her travels between lives compelling and had me flipping the pages as fast as I could to see where she would end up. The Other Life is a wonderful novel that women’s fiction readers will absolutely love and I’m certain I’ll be picking up more of Ellen Meister’s books in the future because of it!