The Other Life Paperback – December 6, 2011

Quinn has known since she was a young child that she has another life. She knows there are portals to this other life through which she can go. Her mother and brother knew she could do this. Her mother warned her not to go through them. Her brother once saw her put her arm through a portal.As an adult, Quinn had a "shock jock" boyfriend Eugene who was very needy and neurotic. Then she met Lewis and married him. Her mother who was bipolar committed suicide sometime after the wedding. Quinn and Lewis had a son named Isaac who was about six years old as the story opens. Quinn becomes pregnant again and tests show there is a deformity. She cannot decide whether to continue the pregnancy.Quinn knows there is a portal in the basement of her current house and vows to herself to stay away from it. Her husband does not know about her other life or portals. She knows Eugene is on the other side as is her mother. She starts going back and forth between her two lives during the stress of the pregnancy. She seems obsessed by her relationship with her mother and her mother's suicide and that draws her to the other life more than Eugene.The author keeps writing about Quinn as a person who likes to be needed, but I found she was emotionally quite needy and fragile. Frequently she was closed herself off from her husband even though she accused him of doing that with her. The only way she seemed to be able to deal with the stress of the pregnancy was to escape her current life by going through the portals. I found myself getting quite aggravated with Quinn as the book progressed. She seemed quite self-centered and even whiney in her thoughts and made some poor choices.I enjoyed this book and didn't want to put it down even though I didn't particularly like the main character.

Imagine being able to slip through a passageway in own your laundry room and arrive in a whole different life when yours isn't going so well. Personally, I wish I'd heard of this a long time ago and will be contacting Ellen Meister immediately for tips since this is exactly what happens in her stunning novel, THE OTHER LIFE. This stellar book is full of just this kind of imagination. It's a tale that will force you to stay up way too late at night and be cranky the next day at work because you keep thinking you'll read just another page or two, but then there goes Quinn again through that portal, and if you just read a few more pages to see what's going to happen on the other side, you'll be able to relax. Suddenly, several more hours have gone by.Depressed by possible health issues of her unborn child, Quinn longs to talk to her deceased mother about the pregnancy, and she's always wondered whether she made the right decision in leaving her ex-husband. She discovers just such a portal and crosses over to a past chapter from her life. Now she can visit with her mother whenever she likes and enjoy the brilliant colors in her mother's paintings like she used to. Quinn learns to forgive her mother's betrayal.But then there's that ex-husband of hers. She remembers there were plenty of good times with him, too. The two remember a little too well until the attraction is so strong Quinn has to extricate herself from some pretty seductive situations and decide just which life she's going to live--the one with her new man or her old one. Besides loving her current husband, there's her young son whom she misses desperately whenever she visits her old life.Back and forth she goes. When tension rises in one of the worlds, she slides on back to the other, and she finds it hard to resolve all the issues at once.A delicious read, optioned by HBO.*Ellen Meister's highly-anticipated novel, Farewell, Dorothy Parker, will be out on with Putnam in February 2013 and promises to be every bit as brilliant and inventive, not to mention hysterical in that dry and infamous Dorothy-Parker-kind-of way.Violet Epps, a mousey movie critic, suddenly develops a commanding voice in the review world mainly because she learns to be a conduit for Dorothy Parker's cantankerous spirit, who refuses to leave this earth. Using her literary idol's scorching wit, Violet excels in her field but wishes deeply that she had the same kind of power over her personal life. She even visits the Algonquin Hotel to try to garner the kind of strength Dorothy Parker was celebrated for, only to get more entangled than she meant to with the literary lioness's own unique, other-worldly complications.Can't wait to get my hands on Meister's newest!

First let me say right off that Ellen Meister is a very talented writer. Each book she writes has a style all its own, suited to the telling of the story, rather than the story being tailored to her style. This particular story has the unusual twist of the super natural, but the characters aren't. In fact, they are the most ordinary people you would meet anywhere or living next door to you. Each has their own definitive voice and characteristics, but all with their own vulnerabilities, all of which the reader can readily relate...they are believable living in an unbelievable story line, dealing with things we all know well. I've read several of this author's books and each one is a delight and is truly unique and this one is no exception. I highly recommend it along with all her other books...great Summer reads!