I DNFed this title. The spiritual undertones threw me off. There looks to be a lot going on in this book as well, "woe is me" and tragedy and multiple POVs.

An intriguing book with an interesting take on a time slip story that had me hastily turning the pages at the start to find out what would happen next! Rating this book was a challenge, though, because while I really like the idea of this story, for me, there were too many plot holes and confusion, which made the last half of the book tough to get through. What would you do if you had a chance to change events in the past so that a loved one could avoid a heartbreaking event, knowing that doing so would likely be the catalyst that alters a future you desperately want to return to? That premise drew me in immediately! While I thought the main character, Maria Forssmann, was relatable -- a working mom who is stressed out with the demands of her career, while trying to be a good mom to her 2.5 kids and an attentive partner to her husband -- as the story progressed, I found her motivations and actions frustrating. Some of the biggest plot holes for me involved Henry, including details regarding his "purpose", and Dr. Eric Johnstone, his past, his "purpose" and what he'd learned about others. I would have liked to see more text tying some things together and providing more details, since there were so many characters and several story lines intermingled, rather than having to make inferences about what happens, how things are connected and what happened. All in all, an entertaining story and a good debut novel. Thank you to NetGalley and ‎Forge Books for providing me with an advanced reader copy of She Wouldn't Change a Thing by Sarah Adlakha in exchange for an honest review.

Wow. I'm not sure where to start with this one. The concept of overlapping lives, people going back in time to change things and all the interlocking lives is immense and beautiful.

The last chapter drew an audible gasp from me at just how intertwined the characters' lives are. No matter where in time.

I'll be thinking on this one for awhile.

This book really surprised me. All along I was trying to figure out the connections, the twists, and when all was finally revealed I was like, "Whoa!".

I am totally guilty of not fully comprehending synopsis before I start a book, so I end up on some wild rides.

What if someone told you that you could go back and do it all over, is there anything you would change?

What if you weren’t given a chance to choose and you’re thrown back. Where you have two choices to make but you must be fully prepared to live with the consequences.

This book followed two characters;

Maria who made me angry within the first couple pages, but ended up loving her in the end.

Jenny, who questioned her choices she made many years ago.

I really enjoyed this book, the characters feelings were relatable to everyday life and struggles we all go through. The book made me think about life; past, present and future.

It was a quick read but I was hooked from the first page.

I really enjoyed this story that transported me back to the 80s of my childhood.  I don't usually read fantasy so I had never come across a book that dealt with time travel. This novel surprisingly immersed me into the story and made me belive that what was happening to psychiatrist Maria Frossmann was really possible.  There are two separate stories happening simultaneously so it's a bit confusing at first.  But the author cleverly pulls everything together at the end for a surprising finish.  I'll be sure to look for other stories by this author.

What if you had a chance to prevent a terrible tragedy - but had to give up a happy life with a husband you love and two beautiful daughters and a son on the way? Could you do it? f you didn't, could you live with the guilt? Such a terrible situation Maria finds herself in when her 39 year old self awakens in her 17 year old body and still at home with her parents.

This was an emotional story that moved back and forth between lives. There were parts that were beautiful and touching, and others that were difficult and despairing. A really good debut novel for Sarah Adlakha!

Thanks to Macmillan-Tor Forge through Netgalley for an advance copy.

She Wouldn’t Change a Thing was a wholly unique interpretation of time-travel mixed with living alternative lives. This type of book, that recognizes the possibility of living an alternative life or time looping, has been extremely popular lately. Some examples that I’ve most recently enjoyed are The Midnight Library, The Love Proof and Half Life. This premise had me pumped to start and I dove in headfirst.

The first quarter of the book had me riveted and glued to the pages. It was straightforward and the mysterious patient Sylvia brought on a lot of drama. Suddenly the story goes awry, and Maria is back in her childhood home, rather than at home, with her husband, her two girls and pregnant with her third child. I had no understanding of the why behind this was happening, or the how she was going to get back to her family. Of course, her parents think she nuts when she’s upset about not being pregnant and asking after her husband and kids.

Maria, a psychiatrist, is trying to unravel what is happening to her, and gets hints from another patient and a special doctor who comes to see her. At this point, I’m invested and just starting to figure things out when another twist hits and we learn that something tragic has happened to her.

I give kudos to the author for giving the reader the space and time to figure things out, but sometimes I was frustrated, and I just wanted to talk to someone about it. It was then that I had an aha moment, if I’m this frustrated, the character had to be at her wits end!

This book makes you think about your life and if you could go back in time and stop a tragedy, would you? And what if stopping that tragedy changed the overall trajectory of your own life? The story all comes together in a beatific and meaningful way. I definitely enjoyed this book and cannot wait until August so I can discuss it with other readers.

I really enjoyed this book. It isn't something that I would normally read, but it was recommended to me by someone with whom I share similar reading taste, and it was a pleasant surprise. Even though time travel/reincarnation was involved, it felt like a very realistic story and I could easily put myself in the MC's situation. I will be looking for more from this author.

Maria is in her thirties, married with two children and pregnant with her third. She wakes up in a strange room and realizes she is in the past and is 17 again. She is desperate to get back to the life she had with her family. When she meets someone else who is displaced in time, she realizes she has an important decision to make and there may be a reasons she was sent back to this exact time. I was a little annoyed of how many instances Maria made herself look crazy talking about the future knowing she was making people around think she was crazy. She is a doctor in her future and she should be smarter than that! I am really interested in time travel and this book left me with lots of questions about how the end all worked out. The ending was amzing and I loved how everything all tied up!

Four Stars

I received an invitation from the publisher to request this book, and the synopsis sounded intriguing. This book had peaks and valleys for me. The first 30% of the story had me locked tight in its clutches. The rest of the book had me mildly interested, frustrated and occasionally confused. I had a little trouble keeping the trajectory of the characters straight at the end, but by that time I didn't much care anyway. Because I got the gist of the book, which was this: If you had the chance to correct a horrible tragedy that occurred to a love one, would you sacrifice your own happiness to right that wrong? Could you live with yourself (and still be happy without guilt) if you squandered that unique opportunity? And if you "did the right thing", what would your alternate reality be after doing so?

Maria and Will have been married for over a decade, with two daughters and a baby boy on the way. They still are very attracted to each other and as they say, are "lucky in love". Will is a surgeon and Maria is a psychiatrist with her own practice. The only problem is the lack of time and chaos that is their life. Maria doesn't want to hire help and is juggling so many things. Will even said that she could be a stay-at-home Mom, but Maria bristled at the idea that her career was somehow less important than Will's.

Maria's about 9 months pregnant when she encounters a very strange patient named Sylvia with an incredible warning. It sounds crazy (no pun intended), but Sylvia says she's from the future, realizes that Maria's had some trepidation about the expected baby, and that she should wait until the baby is born to retrieve a laptop from her storage shed-and give it to the police. The laptop belongs to Maria's longtime and devoted secretary Rachel, who lost her ten month old baby to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome six months ago. This all sounds bizarre and unsettling, and sparks the beginning of this book's fantastical journey.

I'm not going to delve further into the nuts and bolts of this story to keep it spoiler free. But the concept of returning to your teenage years... knowing the date of a tragedy is looming near and the power is in your hands to stop it...but if you do you might not be able to go back to your old life...what to do??? This was the emotional essence powering this story and it certainly was compelling.

Thank you to the publisher Macmillan-Tor/Forge for providing an advance reader copy via NetGalley.

This was a very interesting concept, and one that always intrigues me - alternate realities/time travel. From the back of the book, I did not get the impression that the book would tackle such heavy, dark, subject matter as suicide (in vivid detail), child molestation, and murder. Specifically, the line "a wife and mother who is given the chance to start over" felt very misleading to me. Maria wasn't looking for a chance to start over and that line led me to imagine a haggard housewife who's wondering "what if" about her life and then she gets a chance to see for herself. That was not what this book was at all.
As such, the book was not what I expected. It was much darker than I care to read, but I kept at it because of the intriguing concept. However, I didn't feel that the ending was a strong payoff. The whole thing with Jenny just felt weird at the end and left me confused and dissatisfied.
I would have liked to something of Maria's thought process about having to finish high school and college again, all while having the 39 year old memories of her previous life. Maybe it's my virtual schooling brain from the pandemic, but the idea of having my adult brain and having to relive any year of school sounds like a tedious nightmare!
I was also confused by the Henry/Hank thing. He was supposed to be Jenny's husband, now Maria's? But why? How did he know Maria in her opening life?
Overall, I didn't connect to this story very strongly and thought it would be very different than it was.

I was skeptical about this story at first, I have read things similar to it and usually they end up bad at portraying it. This author has proven my opinions wrong, she writes beautifully leaving me always wanting the next page. I could have read this whole book in one sitting, I most definitely reckmend.

Thank you NetGalley and Forge for this advance ebook copy!
By the time NetGalley approved my request I already read via Edelweiss.
So I'm going to post my same review 😊

This crazy emotional suspenseful book was a delight to dive into!
What I liked most was that the Characters were so realistic and relatable!
The book.was un-putdownable and wild!
This was an exciting, awesome, good book!

Thank you again for the approval!

Very interesting book. It reminded me a little bit of the movie "Peggy Sue Got Married.... or did she?".

Maria, a psychiatrist, is visited by Sylvia who tells her that she has a greater purpose and to not go to the storage shed that she rents out to her secretary, Rachel. Nine month pregnant Maria does go and she ends up being shot, but does not die. However, she goes back to when she was a teenager and is quite confused. She ends up in a psychiatric hospital and meets a doctor who tells her that she is back for a greater purpose. Maria must decide whether to save her own life or that of her husband, Will's sister. If she saves her own life, her life with Will and her children will be over. If she saves Will's sister, she will continue on with the life she had gone back to.

Great writing, and a great thriller. It was interesting to see how decisions we make can determine how the future shapes out.

Fantastic book! Read in 1 day! It was a very easy read and I definitely enjoyed it very much. Looking forward to reading more from this author, as I have not read anything before. Thanks so much for letting me read this!

I was kept on the edge of my seat throughout this book, wondering what happened to Maria. The time travel theme raises some thought provoking problems that anyone can ask themselves - what would you do if you were faced with the choices that Maria had to make? The dilemma Maria finds herself in is at once unimaginable yet relatable as it shows us the decisions we all make and how they affect our lives. The book keeps you guessing as to what happened, what will happen, and how all the characters presented are related to each other. It is twisty, terrifying at parts and will make you think, which leaves a lasting impression. I"m still thinking about this book and I finished it over a week ago. Definitely recommend!

This book and I didn't hit it off quite well, and I believe that's due to my preference for stories written in first person POV. I was not able to finish it. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC!

***ARC Provided by NetGalley***

3 stars, heavily leaning towards 3.5 stars.
This is one of those books that's difficult for me to review, because I liked it, but I didn't love it. I liked the premise, and the overall execution, but something I can't put my finger on just didn't leave me really loving it.
(And, as I'm writing this, the book has an average rating of 4.3 stars so I definitely feel in the minority!)

The book is basically the moral dilemma- if you could go back and change a thing, would you? And how does it impact the rest of your life? Only with a science fiction twist.
Because if you go back, you change everything (classic butterfly effect)- including your own destiny, which you know and you have to live with it for the rest of your new life.

How do you define your own life? Is it through the work you do? Your relationships?
And what if all that changed by making one small decision? What if you could completely change someone else's tragedy?


I don't want to go into too many spoilers. But I have to say, the last couple of chapters felt... incomplete. I wanted MORE of an explanation of how things changed, not just names to get that "OOOOHHHHH" moment.
Overall, I recommend this to anyone that loves time travel science fiction. I think that part is extremely well done, and the reason I lean 3.5 stars.

This was a can't-put-it-down thriller that made me want to stay up all night until I found out what exactly was going on, and what Maria would decide to do about it. It is one of many time travel books that have been released in the past year, along with Fifty in Reverse, Before the Coffee Gets Cold, and The Midnight Library, and I think they have all been fun and interesting to read. She wouldn't change a thing is about a young pregnant mother who is visited by someone in the future who warns her against doing something, that she ignores and does anyway, with dire and tragic consequences. The writing is a little rough and tumble, with minimal character development for the primary characters. But it's a great fast-paced and original story, and certainly an admirable first novel for author Sarah Adlakha. Thank you #NetGalley for an advance copy of #SheWouldntChangeaThing! I enjoyed it from start to finish.