The gears grind a little slow at the start of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novel, Maybe in Another Life. But once the reader gets past an overstuffed exposition, the plot takes off at a good canter.

The main character, Hannah Martin, returns to her home city (L.A.) just as she’s staring age 30 in the face. She meets a few high school friends at a Hollywood bar and, at the end of the evening, makes one small decision:

Will she go home with her old boyfriend?

Or will she not?

Hannah chooses Door A.

But wait! In the next chapter, we return to the bar and Hannah chooses Door B. From there, we follow our heroine, chapter by chapter, through one life, and then another.

Hannah should have something to show for her twenty-nine years by now. She should have picked a place to settle down, instead of flitting from LA to Austin to the Pacific Northwest to New York. She should have been more like her best friend, Gabby, who set her career plans way back in those high school hallways, and who is now married to a dentist.

But Hannah is Hannah. She can’t decide her favorite color, her favorite movie, even her favorite candy bar (me neither). I’m surprised this novel doesn’t include Doors C and D, but that would get unwieldy.

Wait. I take that back. It would spawn a book series.

Anyway, Hannah and Gabby make their way through this story, doing what best friends do, i.e. picking each other up at the airport and throwing surprise birthday parties. They also lay on the floor, bawling, when life falls apart.

Other characters include Gabby’s parents, who step in for Hannah’s own distracted mom and dad. Then there’s the high school boyfriend. Hannah and Ethan’s love looked true back in the day. But people go to college. People meet other people.

There’s even a dog, who delivers some needed karma to the villain.

Jenkins Reid serves up great surprises and fun banter. I loved the suspense of reading a Door A chapter, then turning the page and knowing something that Door B Hannah did not.

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