REVIEW:

Now THAT is how you write an ending!

She Wouldn’t Change a Thing is a novel about time travel, and before I get back to it here’s a quick list of time-travelin’ books I’ve truly enjoyed before:

• none

• nada

• zilch

I tried twice to finish The Time Traveler’s Wife, and I only made it about 50 pages into Life After Life (which is actually called out as a comparative title in his one’s blurb). Who knows why I took a chance on Sarah Adlakha’s debut then, but if I could do it all over I wouldn’t change a thing.

The concept sounds simple. A 39-year-old pregnant woman wakes up as her 17-year-old self and must make the choice between fulfilling her “purpose” back then - which would then eliminate her present - or getting back to middle-aged life as she knew it with her husband and kids. Wait… did I get that right? Are you confused? Ah heck, I don’t know.

One of my favorite authors, Diane Chamberlain, provided a quote for the cover that describes this book as “a mind-bending story,” and she ain’t lying! The tapestry Adlakha weaves is intricate and requires a lot of brain power at times. Sometimes I didn’t feel up to the challenge, and many of the questions posed about the universe, spirituality, faith, and physics went pretty deep.

But then the ending! And an even better epilogue! Picture me standing up and giving this author a round of applause.

Audiobook listeners will be pleased to hear that the always-reliable Cassandra Campbell provides the narration. In the first few chapters she’s given the wretched task of performing the lines of toddlers, but rest assured this doesn’t last long. Hang in there… all the way to that epilogue… and it’ll be worth your while.

My thanks to the author, Forge Books, and MacMillan audio for providing me with advance copies to review!

PUBLISHER SYNOPSIS:

Sliding Doors meets Life After Life in Sarah Adlakha's story about a wife and mother who is given the chance to start over at the risk of losing everything she loves.

A second chance is the last thing she wants.

When thirty-nine year old Maria Forssmann wakes up in her seventeen-year-old body, she doesn’t know how she got there. All she does know is she has to get back: to her home in Bienville, Mississippi, to her job as a successful psychiatrist and, most importantly, to her husband, daughters, and unborn son.

But she also knows that, in only a few weeks, a devastating tragedy will strike her husband, a tragedy that will lead to their meeting each other.

Can she change time and still keep what it’s given her?

Exploring the responsibilities love lays on us, the complicated burdens of motherhood, and the rippling impact of our choices, She Wouldn't Change a Thing is a dazzling debut from a bright new voice.