This had a great premise, but didn't follow through. I wanted to like this, but honestly it was just boring.

Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to read and review this ARC. Full review to be found on Goodreads and on my website.

You will need to really pay attention to the story line in this book. What is real, what is imagined or dreamed.

this book was very very mid. i wasn't invested in the characters, and the supernatural element of the story wasn't incorporated well. plus the ending made me wonder what the point to the entire book was? it didn't really do anything to develop any of the characters we followed.

I always love a good mulit-verse book. However, I feel like there was something a little lacking in this one.

If, Then takes on the premise of “what if I made this decision differently, then my life world be different” to a whole new level. People in a small town wake up in an alternate reality and see different versions of themselves.

I honestly found this book confusing and hard to follow at times with all the different perspectives. I did think it was an interesting and unique premise though.

“If, Then” by Kate Hope toys with the idea of parallel universes. Philosophers and scientists have considered the idea of other universes for years. It’s a fun premise to consider. Most of our actions can have multiple consequences. It’s those forks in the road; those decisions we make that form our realities.

Four neighbors begin to see visions of themselves with different lives. At first they feel they are a bit crazy. These visions lead to two of the characters making life-changing choices.

Hope writes a almost science fiction novel that encourages the reader to consider parallel universes, to consider if different choices in life had been made, is there another version of yourself living with those consequences? It’s an easy and quick read that engaged this reader. Hope writes the characters realistically, which makes it easy to identify with them.

Love anything by Kate Hope Day! IF, THEN is compelling, well-written, and gives you much to think about. I recommend this book to everyone.

Could not get into it maybe because of tall the hype this book was getting. I know I’ll come back to it. Thank you for eARC. I greatly appreciate it. Was not in mindset for suburban drama.

Dr. Ginny McDonnell is a surgeon who, after 15 years of marriage, dreams her affair with her scrub nurse and co-worker Edith could be more permanent.

Ginny’s husband Mark McDonnell is a behavioral ecologist who, based on research studying animal behavior, thinks Broken Mountain, the volcano he lives on, is no longer dormant. His dreams — or rather, nightmares — contain his family of three (Ginny, himself and their pre-teen son, Noah) being in danger.

Cass is Mark and Ginny’s neighbor — the one with the large black dog and baby. She gave up her PhD in metaphysics to be the wife of Amar and mom to Leah. She could go back to school. Her philosophy professor and graduate advisor, Robert Kells, really wants her to come back and help him expand on his research on hypothetical parallel universes.

Samara, another one of Ginny, Mark and Cass’s neighbors, has moved back to her childhood home after her mother died following a procedure Dr. McDonnell personally oversaw. Her mom’s still alive in her hallucinations.

Together, these neighbors make up the threads of Kate Hope Day’s debut novel, “If, Then,” a confusing, forgettable and unsatisfying book that might have worked better in a parallel universe in another form.

As much as “If, Then” centers around Ginny, Mark, Cass and Samara, the reader never really gets to know them beyond the archetypes (doctor mom, scientist dad, neighbor, neighbor) they’re supposed to represent. You don’t come to care for them. You hardly remember them. It’s as if the characters themselves are placeholders — forgettable and undeveloped in favor of a plot where nothing really happens except characters seeing another version of themselves in their present timeline. (If “If, Then” were a movie, the viewer wouldn’t remember the characters names. When summarizing the plot, they’d probably refer to them by the much more famous actor portraying them.)

If “If, Then” were a movie, it wouldn’t be the main draw. It’d be released in the summer, paired with a summer blockbuster (maybe a superhero movie or a romantic comedy) at the drive-in. It’d be a filler, a bonus second or third act that you’re only staying to watch because it’s free with the price of admission and you can’t say no to free stuff.

If “If, Then” were a movie, it wouldn’t win any awards (except maybe a Razzie). It might be what you watch if there’s nothing on television or if you’re too stoned to care. It might be so bad that it’s good.

If “If, Then” shed some characters and focused on developing one (like in the animated film “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” or Blake Crouch’s novel “Dark Matter”), then it might have been better.

But we don’t live in a world of “if, then.” As it is in this universe, the fate of “If, Then” is as doomed as lifeforms living near an active volcano.

Disclaimer: I received a free eARC of “If, Then” from NetGalley and Random House in exchange for this honest review.

I have no idea what the point of this book was.

This is a domestic drama with dashes of philosophy and multiverse theory. A handful of neighbors are living their lives per usual until they begin seeing alternate versions of themselves. One of these individuals is a scientist studying animal behaviors in response to seismological activity and so we start to get the feeling that the "dormant" volcano located near their shared Oregon town may not be as sleepy as commonly believed.

Given how early that seed of doubt regarding the volcano's dormancy was sown, I'll give you one guess how this book plays out. All the rest is just a meandering build-up to that point.

The author had an interesting concept here and I did enjoy the surgeon's sections. Those were highly reminiscent of the early seasons of Grey's Anatomy (back when that show was even partially good), but this book, as a whole, was extremely boring.

I was really excited to read Kate Hope Day’s IF, THEN and thank the publisher and NetGalley. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to connect with the story and at times wondered what I was reading. The story jumping around was distracting and I ended up DNF-ing.

I wanted to love this, especially with the enticing premise, but overall it fell flat for me. There were numerous characters that the chapters shifted between, making it difficult to feel connected to any of them, and it felt more like reading roughed out character sketches. The promised alternate realities felt more like loosely related dreams that were already fading, giving it more of a wispy vs sci-fi quality. The actual writing was very well done, but this book could have been so much more.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the complimentary advance copy. This had no impact on my review.

This was an interesting and fast read. The characters to be well developed and believable and the theories of multiverses were compelling. I found it to be a really quick read, but engaging. Highly recommend giving this debut novel a shot.

OK to be fair science-fiction not my usual thing. I just had a hard time connecting with the story for some reason. The idea of a parallel universe is intriguing, it just did not work for me on these pages.

I should have known better than to read a book that compares itself to The Immortalists. It was really boring and honestly just went nowhere. I thought there would be more character development, but it just fell flat. The best thing I can say is it was fairly short, so it didn't take me long to read it.

I thought this book was interesting, but could not find my footing nor was I really engaged. Perhaps it's just a consequence of the time, but I have to DNF this one all the same. Nevertheless, thanks for allowing me to read in advance — I really love the cover!

This was an interesting read. It was fun to try to piece together the different POVs to get the whole story and timeline. I liked Cass and Samara a lot. Not so sold on Ginny. It reminded me of Station Eleven.

A quick, well-paced read. While this is technically science fiction it doesn’t read like typical sci-fi at all. Easily read by anyone due to its contemporary setting and strong characters.

Science
When most people think of science fiction they imagine space, aliens and/or monstrous species (think Predator). But the reality is there is a whole area of sci-fi that is often left in the fiction section. Often set in modern day life, where everything can be explained by Earth science and is rooted in current known scientific principles. Michael Crichton is easily the most famous writer of this genre. If, Then is perfectly suited to be classified next to Crichton or Blake Crouch.
The scientific topics in Kate Hope Day’s novel range from medicine to frog migration to bunker load capacity. I think the topics are presented in a very accessible way for any reading or education level.

Diversity
As everyone in our novel is connected in some way (by family, friendship, co-worker or neighbour) it could be argued that it is a bit tough to create diversity in the pages. However Day does a good job of giving us different families, ethnicities, religions and a lesbian relationship. There was something missing for me however. All our families are built off the premise that a family constitutes at minimum one child and one parent. I would have liked more focus on Ginny (our single lesbian who lives on her own and is a supporting character) or one additional couple whom are perhaps older and have no children (for whatever reason) that are featured like our other characters. The point of view changes in If, Then between all the characters so you get to know them very well. I know my desire for a couple without children is because I wanted a character or two I could relate to easier.

Characters
I think anyone who can relate to one of the main characters will be enamoured with the dynamic relationships that Day has given us. Even before things start to really ‘happen’, just past halfway, I felt like I could anticipate how our characters would react. That’s generally a good sign as it means the characters make sense and are well established. Each has their own inner struggle and unique reaction to the odd things happening around them.

Preppers
I keep telling my husband if we had random extra money laying around (lol) I might set up a bit of a doomsday prepping area of our home. We laugh and blow it off; even though both of us have genuinely indicated that being prepared is important. The question of course becomes how important. Day brings to light what all dystopian (pre or post) fiction does; preppers last longer and are often the only ones to survive. Let’s face it most people don’t even have enough drinking water in their home for 3 days without power and water (never mind a week). If this story doesn’t make you go buy or organize some extra supplies at your house then you probably missed part of the point.

Plot
You may wonder why I don’t say much about the plot in If, Then. The thing is anything I say regarding the plot is likely to give things away. There are many nuances in the plot and it’s easy to guess how things likely go. Yet that didn’t distract me from wanting to know how each person coped with what was or would happen.

Overall
This would have been a five star book if I had found one character to feel more connected to. It was really the only thing missing for me. As Day’s book is very focused on the characters and so it’s hard for me to ignore the feeling that one more character set would have been the icing on the cake for this story.
That said, this is a well executed character study set in a reality that could be right now and certainly makes you think about our realities and existence.

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

I needed this book as a kind of brain reset after having read The Heart's Invisible Furies. Kate Hope Day must have the greatest imagination and her words were a joy to read. The book has a dreamlike quality and I am also a huge sucker for parallel reality storylines. The pacing of the novel reminded me a lot of The Dreamers.

I feel like there were kind of incomplete phases of the book but maybe also my attention span wasn't where it should be. Additionally, I got a little hung up on the formal tone of the present tense narrative voice sometimes and that choice was obviously deliberate but it was a distraction to me.

I understand this was Day's first novel and I can't wait to read what's next.

Thank you NetGalley for the advance copy. I posted this in April 2019 on Goodreads. Not sure how I missed posting my review here as well!