Years before The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo made her a household name, Taylor Jenkins Reid published Maybe in Another Life, a novel built on a single, deceptively simple hinge: what if you could see both branches of your life after one small decision, running side by side, instead of just the one you actually lived? Kirkus Reviews gave it a starred review, and it built a loyal readership well before Reid's later, more decorated novels arrived. This review works through what the book actually does structurally, what critics and Goodreads's roughly 312,900 raters actually said about it, and where real readers -- not just marketing copy -- found the ending frustrating rather than satisfying.
What Maybe in Another Life Actually Is
Hannah Martin is 29, recently out of a long relationship, and drifting between cities and half-finished careers when she flies home to Los Angeles and is picked up from the airport by her college friend Gabby. On the drive home, Hannah's ex-boyfriend from high school, Ethan, texts asking her to come to a bar he's at that night. From that single decision -- go, or don't go -- the novel splits into two parallel storylines that run in alternating chapters for the rest of the book: one where Hannah gets in the car and drives to see Ethan, and one where she goes home and falls asleep instead. Neither timeline is framed as more "real" than the other; Reid simply follows both all the way to the end, letting two entirely different versions of the next several years of Hannah's life play out side by side, with different jobs, different relationships, and in one branch, a serious accident that reshapes everything that follows.
About Taylor Jenkins Reid and Why She Wrote This
Reid studied media studies at Emerson College and worked in the Los Angeles film industry as a casting assistant before she started writing part-time, eventually quitting her job in 2011 to finish her first novel, Forever, Interrupted, published in 2013. Maybe in Another Life was her third book, released in 2015, several years before the run of novels -- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Daisy Jones & the Six, Malibu Rising -- that later made her one of the most widely read novelists in the country. In interviews, Reid has said the friendship between Hannah and her best friend Gabby draws directly on her own close female friendships, and that the questions the book keeps circling -- how much of a life is determined by chance versus choice, and whether there's such a thing as a soul mate -- are ideas she has said she expects to keep writing about across her career, not something this one book was meant to resolve. She's also noted that her early interest in the project was almost structural before it was emotional: she was drawn to the number three in storytelling, from the awkwardness of being a third wheel to the visual balance of the rule of thirds, well before the plot settled into its parallel-timeline shape.
How It Compares to Other Parallel-Life Stories
The premise inevitably invites comparison to Sliding Doors, the 1998 film built on the same "one moment, two lives" structure, and Reid's own later novel One True Loves revisits similar territory from a different angle. What sets Maybe in Another Life apart from both is commitment: rather than treating one timeline as the "real" one and the other as a brief detour, Reid gives both branches genuinely equal narrative weight all the way to a set of parallel epilogues, refusing to tell the reader which version of Hannah's life she's actually supposed to be rooting for. If you came to this book after loving the tighter, more polished plotting of Reid's later bestsellers, it's worth knowing going in that this earlier novel is looser and more meditative by comparison -- less a puzzle box than an extended thought experiment.
What Critics Actually Said
Rather than inventing a verdict, here's what was actually published about it:
“Entertaining and unpredictable; Reid makes a compelling argument for happiness in every life.”— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Readers looking for a romance with a twist won't be disappointed.”— Library Journal
And the aggregate reader picture, for what it's worth:
Where Real Reviews Pushed Back
The most consistent complaint across independent reader reviews concerns the ending, and it's worth being specific about it rather than vague: Reid closes the book with two separate epilogues, one for each timeline, instead of collapsing the parallel structure into a single resolved answer. Some readers describe wanting the story to land in just one place for a cleaner sense of closure, and at least one reviewer noted feeling mildly let down by not knowing which life was meant to be "real," even while understanding that ambiguity was the point. Other readers loved exactly this choice, rereading both epilogues before putting the book down. That split reaction isn't a fringe complaint -- it shows up repeatedly enough across reviews that anyone who wants tidy, single-track resolution should know upfront this book isn't built to give it to them.
On Fate, Chance, and the Mechanics of "What If"
The novel's real engine isn't romance, even though it reads on the surface like a love story. It's the mechanics of a much bigger question: how much of a life comes down to deliberate choice versus plain accident. Reid doesn't resolve this philosophically so much as dramatize it, letting one version of Hannah's life get derailed by a serious car accident that never happens in the other branch, and following how differently the same person responds to radically different circumstances. The two Hannahs make some of the same choices and some completely different ones, and the gap between them is where the book does its most interesting work -- not answering whether fate or chance runs the show, but showing how thoroughly the question resists a clean answer.
On Friendship as the Book's Real Emotional Anchor
For a novel packaged around a will-they-won't-they romance with Ethan, its steadiest emotional throughline is actually Hannah's friendship with Gabby, which survives essentially unchanged across both timelines even as everything else in Hannah's life diverges. That consistency is deliberate: Reid has pointed to her own friendships as the direct source for that relationship, and it shows in how much more textured and specific the Hannah-Gabby scenes feel compared to some of the more conventional romantic beats elsewhere in the book. Readers who come in expecting a straightforward romance sometimes miss that the friendship, not the love interest, is what the book is actually most interested in getting right.
That choice also shapes how the book handles grief and recovery. In the branch where Hannah is badly injured in a car accident, it's Gabby -- not Ethan -- who does the unglamorous, day-to-day work of showing up during her recovery, and the novel spends real time on that instead of rushing past it to get back to the romance plot. It's a quieter kind of caretaking than the genre usually foregrounds, and it's arguably where Reid's writing is at its most emotionally precise in this particular book.
On Los Angeles as More Than a Backdrop
Both timelines are anchored in the same version of Los Angeles, and Reid uses that shared setting deliberately: the city stays constant while everything happening inside it diverges. Specific, recognizable places recur across both storylines -- the same bar, the same childhood streets, the same airport where the whole premise begins -- which reinforces the book's underlying argument that circumstances change a life far more than location does. It's a subtle structural choice that rewards readers paying close attention to how the two Hannahs experience the same physical spaces so differently depending on which version of her life they're following.
Key Takeaways
- The parallel-timeline structure runs the full length of the book, with two complete storylines and two separate epilogues rather than one converging ending
- Kirkus gave it a starred review specifically for how it dramatizes chance versus choice without moralizing about which one wins
- The most common, well-documented reader criticism is that the dual ending withholds the closure the premise seems to promise
- Hannah's friendship with Gabby, not her romance with Ethan, is the book's most consistently well-developed relationship across both timelines
- This is an earlier, looser Taylor Jenkins Reid novel -- readers coming from her later, tighter bestsellers should adjust expectations accordingly
Who This Book Is Actually For
Readers who enjoy "what if" premises and don't need a single tidy answer by the last page will get the most out of this one. It also suits existing Taylor Jenkins Reid fans who've read her later, more famous novels and want to see an earlier, rawer version of the ideas about fate and chance she keeps returning to across her career. Anyone who's ever genuinely wondered how differently their own life might have gone after one small decision -- a text answered or ignored, a party attended or skipped -- is exactly the reader this book is written for.
Who Should Read Something Else Instead
If you specifically want closure -- a single ending you can point to and say "that's what happened" -- the well-documented reader frustration with this book's dual epilogues is a real reason to hesitate. Readers who came to Reid through The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo or Daisy Jones & the Six should also know this earlier novel is a noticeably different, less polished reading experience, and might be better served starting with one of her later books instead. And if car-accident and hospital-recovery scenes are difficult subject matter for you right now, it's worth knowing that one full timeline of this book is built directly around that kind of injury and its aftermath.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Starred review from Kirkus specifically for its unpredictability and structural commitment to both timelines
- The parallel-lives structure is genuinely well-executed, with two fully developed storylines rather than one main plot and a token alternate
- Hannah and Gabby's friendship gives the book real emotional grounding beyond the central romance
- Solid 3.77 out of 5 rating across more than 312,000 Goodreads ratings
- Works well as an accessible entry point into Reid's earlier catalog for readers who started with her later bestsellers
Cons:
- The dual-epilogue ending is a real, recurring point of reader frustration rather than an isolated complaint
- Less tightly plotted than Reid's later, more acclaimed novels
- The romance elements read as more conventional than the book's central structural idea
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the actual premise of Maybe in Another Life?
Hannah Martin, at a crossroads at 29, is picked up from the airport by an old friend -- and the novel splits into two alternating storylines from that single choice: one where she gets in the car and goes home with him, and one where she doesn't. Both versions of her life run in parallel chapters for the rest of the book.
What's the real Goodreads rating?
3.77 out of 5 from roughly 312,900 ratings as of this writing, per Goodreads. Check the live number yourself, since it keeps moving.
Does the book resolve which life is the real one?
Not definitively, and that's the single most-discussed reader complaint. Reid gives the novel two separate epilogues rather than collapsing the two timelines into one answer, which some readers find thematically appropriate and others find like it dodges the question the whole book was built to ask.
Do I need to read her other books first?
No. Maybe in Another Life predates The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & the Six and doesn't share characters or continuity with them -- it stands completely on its own.
Sources & Further Reading
- Goodreads — Maybe in Another Life (aggregate rating, reader reviews)
- Kirkus Reviews — starred review
- Library Journal — review
- Taylor Jenkins Reid's official author site — book page and background
- HuffPost — interview with Taylor Jenkins Reid
- PositiveLifes.com — free inspirational and life-changing PDF books
Final Verdict
Maybe in Another Life earned its starred Kirkus review honestly -- it commits fully to a genuinely difficult structural idea instead of using the parallel-lives premise as a gimmick, and Hannah and Gabby's friendship gives it more emotional weight than the marketing suggests. The dual-ending criticism from readers is real and worth knowing before you start, but it's also arguably the book working exactly as designed: refusing to tell you which life matters more. If you want a tidy resolution, this isn't it. If you're willing to sit with an unresolved question, it's a rewarding, well-crafted read from a novelist who was still finding her footing before she became one of the biggest names in commercial fiction. Read alongside her later work, it's also a genuinely interesting look at where Reid's recurring obsessions -- fate, friendship, the roads not taken -- actually started, before she had the polish and plotting control that made her subsequent novels bestsellers.
Buy Day rating: 7.8/10