This is young adult fiction so not my normal choice of read. I loved the characters in this although some of the back and forth between lives was a bit confusing. The story links the past and present and included songs as the link. It is quite sad in places but still a lovely read.

Not my cup of tea. From the blurb I expected something different. This felt very much like a YA book. It felt "over egged". The American culture hugely dominant so being a European I felt a bit alienated. I think it would have been better too, if the book had concentrated on the two main characters more.

I Loved You In Another Life centres around Evan, whose father has recently left and whose mother has just received a heartbreaking diagnosis, and Shosh, who is grieving her older sister who died at the hands of a drunk driver. The story follows their separate healing journeys as well as the development of their relationship and explores themes of grief, family relationships and friendship.

I absolutely loved David Arnold's unique writing style which is very lyrical and almost whimsical. His observations around around family dynamics in particular were extremely poignant and very true to life. I thought the positive representation of therapy in this book was great and I thought the wider discussion around mental health particularly in teenagers was handled really well.

However, the 'other lives' included throughout the story felt largely irrelevant to the rest of the plot and didn't feel like they added anything to our understanding of the characters. I also found the pacing to be slightly off as for the first half of the book Evan and Shosh's storylines are completely so the constant changing of points of view disrupted the flow of each individual story. The romance element of the story felt very rushed and it felt like we were constantly told they were in love and were expected to just believe it.

Overall, I liked some elements of this book and found it to be an okay read. I wish this book had stuck to being a young-adult literary fiction rather than trying to include the romance and the fantasy elements as these are the areas were I feel it fell flat and the fantasy in particular destroyed the momentum of the protagonists stories.

Evan and Shosh hear songs in their head and see a bird. Who sings them? Why do they hear them? What do they mean? Both have various traumas to deal with and the so gs and bird seem to help them.
As the story unfolds, we meet other versions of Evan and Shosh in different times and find out more about the songs and the bird.
A bit slow to start, but bear with it. A gentle tale which explores several issues such a divorce, alcoholism, living with neurodiversity, along with teenage growing up.

This book is pegged as the most gloriously romantic and heartwarming story of two souls drawn together over and over again but honestly, as interesting as that concept was, I don't feel like it delivered. It's a perfect adequate story of two souls drawn together, interspersed with vignettes of those same two souls coming together and being pulled apart in other, previous lives. I like that, similar to David Levithan's Every Day, the souls aren't gendered, and their iterations vary, but there really wasn't enough for me to be swept into the overall romance of the story. Rather, I was left kind of disappointed at how little I felt like that aspect was developed, with the story being hugely concentrated on their current, modern-day iterations. In that sense, it was a perfectly normal love story, except that they were drawn together by music. Overall, it was sweet, sometimes tending into saccharine, but just lacked the depth and chewiness I was really hoping for.

Yet again I didn't realise that a book was Young Adult. It's well-written, but not really my thing.

I loved the characters in this although some of the back and forth between lives was a bit confusing. However, it is a lovely story of links from the past forging the future of the 2 main characters and the implication of meeting in lifetime after lifetime was beautifully described via the songs they hear without being over complicated.
The book tackles loss and sorrow but also extreme love and joy and is a pleasure to read.

Thankyou NetGalley for letting me read an arc for this book
I thought it was such a beautiful, emotional book, 2 soulmates finding each other time and time again, please check the trigger warnings as there are quite a few, but all in all I really enjoyed it and would definitely recommend

What a beautiful story. I found it just flowed and I enjoyed getting to know all the characters, which were written so well that I felt everything along with them and found it to be quite an emotional read but one filled with love and hope as well as loss and sadness. I particularly enjoyed the flashbacks and forwards to Evan and Shosh’s past and future lives and loved how they always managed to find each other again.

This story was sweet but I really found the switching between characters quite off putting as the story progressed.
As the synopsis tells you, both characters are going through a lot of stress and are quite shut off from the friends and family surrounding them. Both Evan and Shosh were complex and I could relate to that. I think I had a very different Idea to how the story would evolve and I became detached from the story as it carried on. That's not like me and for someone else this may be the best book ever.
Many thanks to Bonnier Books for the chance to read this arc copy via Netgalley.
#Netgalley, #bonnierbooks_uk, #iamdavidarnold.

Evan and Shosh had plans, plans that were interrupted by major life experiences. Evan has to come to terms with his father leaving the family for another woman and his mother being diagnosed with cancer. He has a younger neurodivergent brother with whom he has a very close relationship. Shosh has lost a dearly loved sister, who was also her best friend, as a result of a road accident.
Shosh has stopped acting and her promising career, Evan allows his application to a prestigious project before university to lapse, unwilling to leave his mother and brother.
Both are haunted by a song only they can hear which eventually unites them.
The storyline moves from contemporary Britain to past times in plague-ridden Paris, to Tokyo and to Oslo as Evan and Shosh re-emerge in previous existences but this is easily understood.
Although, normally the title would put me off, I kept seeing this book promoted and was glad I overcame my prejudices to read this.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bonnier Books UK for the advance reader copy.

This is a beautiful love story between two teens that seems to also span different lifetimes.
I did find it a little slow to begin with but realised it was in order for the reader to get to know the main characters before they found each other and themselves.

I enjoyed reading this but would have like a little more on the alternate stories in the book, just to make it a bit clearer what was happening.

This book just wasn't for me. I'm sure it will appeal to others as the characters are very likeable and I did warm to them. But I felt like the book was trying to do too much - play with structure/deal with trauma/romance. I think I'd have preferred a simpler version. Clearly, that's very much my own opinion, I'm sure plenty of people will love it.

What a gem of a book.

Told over different timelines and from different characters pov, this is an incredibly heart warming tale that immerges from a place of pain and loss.

I really loved reading this book and, although it was filled with so much sadness, it was a story focused on the need for hope. Both central characters experience love and loss in some way, with their journey to finding each other and the aftermath gripping in the writing of it. This was a delight.

Thanks to netgalley and publishers for arc
Not sure I am target audience for this book should it be in YA section I don’t know
I found it really confusing lots of different characters that I couldn’t follow so I couldn’t finish this book
I am really sorry because the write up really sold me just found the book a little too complicated to follow am sure many will like it

Based around a couple of teenagers with troubled pasts the book unfolds as to how they cope with it. Their families also have problem too.
The story via between reality and fantasy, it also time travels.
An unusual usual book which at times I found hard to follow but still enjoyed.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5879034306

Sweet young adult romance but I couldn't help feeling the author was slightly trying to manipulate my emotions with every tearjerker trope going (multiple deaths, carcrashes, serious medical diagnoses, addictions etc. etc.). I also felt the central storyline and characters were strong enough to stand on their own without the flashbacks to their supposed past and future lives. If this has been pared back a bit to a simpler storyline focussed on those two compelling central characters, I think I would have enjoyed it more.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review.

I struggled with the writing style of this book. It just wasn’t for me unfortunately. I did like the characters though.

This seemed like a book written in two parts. I struggled greatly with the first part. I found it disjointed, difficult to read and didn't capture my imagination at all. But I persevered and as the story of Evan, Shosh and especially Will took off I was drawn in. I loved the cross time idea and the thread of the song but it just didn't pull together enough. I wish I could score the two halves separately, but as it is I will have to give an average.