The Versions of Us

The Versions of Us (advanced reader edition) by Laura Barnett, 402 pages

Eva and Jim are college students in 1958 when Jim witnesses Eva narrowly dodging a bicycle accident. That much we know. But how Jim and Eva respond to this chance meeting (with Jim helping Eva to her feet, with Eva scowling at him as she cycles away) changes the paths of their lives. The Versions of Us simultaneously tells the story of Eva and Jim in three versions: one where they meet, fall in love and marry right away; one where they run into one another at occasional events over the course of their lives spent with other people; and one where they start dating and then break up for reasons they can't control. It's kind of like that Gwyneth Paltrow movie from years back, Sliding Doors, except that we can't use the length of Eva's hair to help with the continuity of the story.

I'll be completely honest here: this was a really convoluted story. The characters are wonderful, multi-layered. The plots are all fascinating; any one of them would have made a great novel in its own right, had it been fleshed out a little bit more. But it's confusing. The review blurb on the advance reader edition's cover refers to this as a "choose-your-own adventure book in which you don't have to choose." If the criss-crossing storylines bother you, I'd recommend reading it like you would a choose-your-own-adventure story and following one path all the way through and then going back to read another path.