Julie's Review: The Versions of Us

Author: Laura Barnett
Series: None
Publication Date: May 3, 2016
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Pages: 416
Obtained: Amazon Vine
Genre:  Contemporary Romance
Rating: 5/5
Bottom Line: A must read!
Grab, Just get it at the library, or Remove from your TBR list? Grab!

Summary: In one moment, two lives will be changed forever . . . and forever . . . and forever. The one thing that’s certain is they met on a Cambridge street by chance and felt a connection that would last a lifetime. But as for what happened next . . . They fell wildly in love, or went their separate ways. They kissed, or they thought better of it. They married soon after, or were together for a few weeks before splitting up. They grew distracted and disappointed with their daily lives together, or found solace together only after hard years spent apart. With The Versions of Us, Laura Barnett has created a world as magical and affecting as those that captivated readers in One Day and Life After Life. It is a tale of possibilities and consequences that rings across the shifting decades, from the fifties, sixties, seventies, and on to the present, showing how even the smallest choices can define the course of our lives. ~amazon.com  

Review: Versions of Us is for those of us who believe is fate and romance. Who believe that no matter the path you take, you end up where you are supposed to be. This novel is the story of Eva and Jim of how their lives are connected  no matter what version you read. In one it takes them longer to find each other and in the others, it takes them longer to find their way back to each other.

Version I finds us with Eva and Jim married very quickly after they met while Eva got a flat tire on her bicycle ride. While they are meant to be together their marriage does have it's struggles.

Version II finds us with Eva and David, having never bumped into Jim on her bicycle ride. It takes us through their life together and how David becomes a successful actor and pretty much leaves Eva to raise their children.

Version III finds us with Jim and Eva having spent a few weeks together but then she decides to go back to David due to certain circumstances.

Each of these versions is tied together by small little details that do not go unnoticed by the reader. How Ms. Barnett did this so eloquently is something that I would love to be able to ask her? These details were planned and outlined it would seem. I'm amazed that this is a debut novel because of the complexities that it took to tell these stories.

I read the book as it was written with each chapter being a different version but you could definitely reading each version one by one if you chose and that is one of the many beauties of this novel. In fact, it might be even more interesting to go back and read each version as a whole to see if changes the readers viewpoint.

I seriously can not recommend Versions of Us more. It will definitely be one of my top reads for 2017.



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