Over time the common thread that ties the two together appears to be the recognition of each other as kindred spirits with similar souls who leave a mark on each other within the chapter of each life they live. The two share philosophies about family, about love, and about life in a way that bonds them on many levels. Ultimately, they both seek an escape from the lives they are living and both always seem to be looking towards the stars. The second category of what I didn't like is mostly spoilers, so continue reading for SPOILERS. I am about to spoil a big mystery in the book so BE WARNED. Seriously SPOILERS. But this is only one of the many connections they share. Like satellites trapped in orbit around each other, Thora and Santi are destined to meet again: as a teacher and prodigy student; a caretaker and dying patient; a cynic and a believer. In numerous lives they become friends, colleagues, lovers, and enemies. She closes it hurriedly. “Give me one second,” she says, and wheels her office chair over to the card printer. As a writer, I’m so inspired by the storytelling possibilities of film,” said Silvey. “I’m beyond thrilled that a team that has been involved in some of my absolute favorites will be giving my book a whole new life in another medium.”

There’s echos of The Time Traveller’s Wife, Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and Groundhog Day in this beautiful story, but it’s more. They are souls that are intertwined - across many different lives and universes, and you’re constantly trying to figure out why. They’re friends at uni, teacher and student, lovers, foster father and daughter, police partners and also enemies. The breadth of Silvey’s imagination for their many lives is just amazing. I loved how her leads question fate, religion, relationships, (and their own sanity!) But also, what makes you, you? Would we be different people if we made different decisions or our parents chose not to travel to a certain place. This gives our leads the chance to test this out. At the surface level, this seems like a weird combination of The Midnight Library (the book) and Groundhog Day (the movie). But this book is so much more than the repetition of lives. As I usually do, I started jotting down points I wanted to discuss in my review. And many of the points I wrote seemed to be plot holes. Why do these two keep meeting in some kind of strange reincarnation? Why is the city the same every time? Why don’t their names change in every lifetime? Why don’t the other persons in their lives change their relationships, how come only these two change? Why is the timeline not changing, how come every life seems to be in the same time period? And on and on… But then comes the Big Reveal at about 70%! (I’m not sure of the exact location because I was so stunned by it, I forgot to make a note of it!) Plot holes resolved, doubts clarified, mysteries uncovered, and all this leads to the discovery of a greater, more potent problem at hand. I couldn’t rest until I reached the ending from this point onwards! That is what reading Meet Me in Another Life is like. Thora and Santi (Santiago) find themselves in Cologne. (neither is a native) They meet cute, at first, anyway. Until, oopsy, soon after they meet, tragedy. It takes only a short time to know that these two have a special bond, one that will persist through life after life, as one or the other is gone by the end of each of the e All this is not to say that it is a perfect book. The section in the second genre was a little abrupt. I would have loved more details about the who’s and the why’s behind the whole episode. But this is such a minuscule complaint in the face of the overall experience that I’m happy to let it go. It also felt like the characters and their relationships to each other were really uneven. In some chapters the characters felt really captivating, their connection felt real, and you cared about what was happening to them, and in others they felt flat, forced, and none of it seemed to matter. Sometimes their connection felt strong, and other times it felt like we were being told they mattered to each other rather than being shown. It also felt like, a lot of times, the characters only had dimension and depth when they were the POV character and became one-dimensional when they weren't. Too often, they existed on the periphery of the other's story until they took center stage again, rather than feeling like complex characters independently throughout.

Featured Reviews

Blurred memories and patterns compound and both characters come to the revelation that they have known each other from a previous life. Memories begin to weave in and out of their consciousness, and common traits from their previous lives are brought into the present, whether it be a scarf knitted by Thora’s father or the blue of her dyed hair. He looks down and starts to draw: image after image of Thora, old and young, her hair all the colors of the rainbow. The ruled lines of the notebook cut each picture, interference on a transmission coming from impossibly far away.

the characters: in the first chapter, they may seem a little cliche, but even then there is a bit of depth to Thora & Santi. I loved how they changed & stayed the same, much as people do. I was fully invested in what happened to these characters. Science fiction can reach out to the stars and at the same time hold tight to the human heart. The many layers of mystery in this beautiful love story lead to a breathtaking ending. The ending was good but I think was a little rushed and could have been better! It was such a load of confusion suddenly thrown on the reader that it didn't leave me much room to feel emotional. Then again, they are my only two critiques.The ground shakes. Santi falls. A tearing like the universe breaking in two. A rip opens up in the floor. Thora is on the other side. He reaches out, almost meeting her grasping fingers. Gravity takes them, and they fall apart, two planets pulled by the force of separate suns. Across lifetimes, Thora and Santi meet again and again, in different ways and forms. Sometimes the pair are colleagues, other times lovers, but in each iteration, they’re inexplicably drawn to each other. As their fates continue to cross, it dawns on them that they must decipher the purpose of their attachment — before their lives come to a final end. Engaging and inventive, this debut novel will appeal to fans of The Time Traveler’s Wife.” That is what reading Meet Me in Another Life is like. Thora and Santi (Santiago) find themselves in Cologne. (neither is a native) They meet cute, at first, anyway. Until, oopsy, soon after they meet, tragedy. It takes only a short time to know that these two have a special bond, one that will persist through life after life, as one or the other is gone by the end of each of the eighteen chapters, to be reunited in the next. Their ages vary in each iteration. In a few they are the same age. In some, one or the other is older, a little, more than a little, or maybe a lot. Their positions of authority vary as well, parent/child, teacher/student, cop/trainee, patient/caretaker, if there is any such hierarchical relationship between them. They have varying personal relationships, with each other (bf/gf, married, prospects), or he with Heloise, she with Jules. But their passion for learning, for exploration, for science binds them together. He can tell she doesn’t believe him. It brings a different emotion, belonging to a different person: anger, at how dismissive she can be. He hears his voice adjust, a stranger speaking through him. “What are you doing here?” Because he has to know, has to unravel this before it unravels him. Atlas Entertainment and Gal Gadot and Jaron Varsano‘s production label Pilot Wave have snapped up the rights to Catriona Silvey’s debut novel, Meet Me in Another Life, which the Wonder Woman star will headline in a feature adaptation.

From early in the book, elements of the simulation intrude into the narrative (such as glitches in reality, and Peregrine the broken AI). How did you balance dropping in these clues with integrating them into Thora and Santi's (apparently real) lives? An absolutely incredible concept brought to life by a stunning new voice in literature. I simply could not put this book down, I had to live in this world as much as possible... Just the best kind of storytelling.” Some people say that true love knows no bounds, and Gal Gadot is about to test that theory in a brand-new film. Fourth, if you like science fiction, as you read this novel, you may wonder at some point if it is science fiction. Thora and Santi keep meeting in life after life, which doesn’t seem to make much sense. Trust me. It really is science fiction, and it all makes sense in the end.

Catriona Silvey

An intriguing thought experiment and a sweet, melancholy heartache of a novel. Santi and Thora’s bond, in the many varied forms it took from life to life, was moving and claustrophobic. Given the smaller spheres many of us are currently living within, their mutual reliance felt particularly poignant . . . and asks the reader how much we are shaped by the people we love.” Lithub - On the Counterintuitive Appeal of the Literary Time Loop - in this article, linked in Silvey���s Q/A response above, she explains very clearly how time loop narratives work in a literary framework. This is MUST READ material! The book is divided into three parts. It almost reads like a bunch of short stories. Each story features the same two characters. But they are different ages in each story. This is a creative idea. But I thought that there would maybe be three stories with the couple falling in love in each dimension. But that is not what this story is at all. Their divergent perspectives offer a fascinating core to their discussions. He is religious, believes in God, an afterlife, and that there is a reason for being, maybe a mission even. Life should make sense. He thinks if he can figure out what God wants of him they can step outside their seemingly endless repetitions. She is an atheist and is having none of that. They talk about faith, determinism, eternity, and plenty more that raises this above the level of a simple entertainment. Santi has always trusted in fate: that there is one way thing have to go. He isn’t literal enough to believe that the future is written in the stars—he’s doing a PhD in astronomy, after all—but his memories of other skies still unsettle him. The idea that there are other possible configurations for the universe, that God could be running them all in parallel, cuts against everything he believes. The only way he can reconcile what he remembers is to think that it’s a message, one he’s not yet ready to understand. He watches the world like a detective, like a poet, waiting for the meaning to come clear.Santi’s faith seems more in fate than in the divine, given his inability to allow for a deity capable of managing multiple universes. But the faith he has, of whatever sort, is put to the test, repeatedly. Along the way I grew close to Thora and Santi: Thora headstrong and spiky and Santi the pious and placid one. They have some interests in common but are very different people. The story is ever changing, ever evolving, even if the setting is largely the same. There are some recurring characters – a few – though their context is sometimes different too. That might sound confusing, but actually it really didn’t feel that way. I had no idea where this was all taking me and yet I was never less than fully engaged.