I don’t know what I expected when I started, but this wasn’t it! I liked this but didn’t love. It was a lot of science fiction combined with thriller.

It was a fun escape in the vein of sliding doors or more currently, Ordinary Joe. What if you chose a different partner or other path? Where would your life be? Would you be happier?
It didn't fully hold my interest, but sci fi and fantasy are not my favorite genre. It would make an interesting read for many of my regular patrons.

"The Other Me" by Sarah Zachrich Jeng is an entertaining and creative debut novel!

Two different lives. The one she lived. The one she never knew was there. Until now!

In the blink of an eye, Kelly goes from leading a single life as a struggling artist in Chicago to living a married life in the small town in Michigan where she grew up. She walks through a door and into a completely different life. How is that possible?

Oddly though, she has memories of this Michigan life. She's married to Eric, someone she knew in high school but just barely. She has memories of dating him, attending and graduating from the same college, and starting a life together 12 years ago. How can she have memories of a life she never lived?

Her memories of her Chicago life remain with her, too. She remembers going to art school on a scholarship, settling in Chicago's art world, living with roommates, she even remembers where she was and what she was doing before walking through a door and into a different life.

Kelly is convinced she needs to go back to Chicago for a view of the single life she remembers. Will it give her the answers she's looking for? Would anyone believe her if she told them her story and who can she trust enough to tell it to?

This compelling story is told entirely in the first-person voice of Kelly. A bit of a slow burn in the first half with the details necessary for character building and the deep backstories. It moves along quickly in the latter half and allows the reader to enjoy how the details come together.

I read the ARC along with listening to the audiobook which I love to do. The audiobook is narrated by Nicole Zanzarella who does an amazing performance with the protagonist's heart wrenching narrative. Her gender voicing skills are right on, as well!

As a reader who begs to be entertained rather than just satisfied, this one did all of that! Sci-Fi allows me to suspend belief and embrace the possibilities and creativity of the author. This is exactly how I enjoy time-travel written, with a bit of suspense and lots of detail! I will definitely be looking to see what this author comes up with next!

4.5 stars rounded up for the author's creativity!

Thank you to Elisha at Berkley for a widget of this ARC through NetGalley. It has been my pleasure to give my honest and voluntary review. This book is now available.

One minute kelly whose 29 years old a struggling artist at a gallery opening , the next thing she knows she walking through a bathroom door and she’s back in her hometown in Michigan married to a guy from her high school Eric. She’s confused what is happening? Was this time travel and alternative universe. What’s weird is she even has memories from her new life. What’s even weirder she doesn’t know if she can trust her new husband Eric. Trying to get back to her “real life” she tries to uncover the mystery of why she’s in her new life. What’s even stranger is the the tattoos she had when she was an artist briefly reappear on her skin. As memories come back she remembers fights with Eric yet he denies them. As Kelly gets closer the more her reality shifts, and her world seems to change in an instant how can she get back to her life and it might just cost her everything. Four stars!

In one moment Kelly is living her best life in Chicago as an artist, celebrating her birthday. As she goes through the door of her best friend’s art show, she finds herself entering her hometown of Michigan. Here, her life is unrecognizable as she never left her hometown for Chicago to go to art school. She’s married to Eric, a guy she barely knew in high school and together they live in the suburbs.

“Everything I learned at art school about how to translate my vision into something tangible – knowledge that had become second nature – is in my brain. I can feel it, just beyond my reach. Normally it surrounds me like the air I breathe, but now when I try to grasp at it, it becomes smoke.”

She frantically tries to get back to her own life, racing against an unknown amount of time and afraid she will be stuck in this life forever. Kelly drives back to Chicago but soon realizes nothing is the same and no one recognizes her. Kelly comes to the conclusion she is not crazy and that this is really happening. Not only has her life completely altered, but her own reality begins to shift, adding onto making things a bit more complicated.

“I need to find out what happened to me. To know for sure if this is real or all in my head. And if it’s real, then I want to know who did it to me.”

This version of herself is supposedly in love with Eric so she decides to trust him and see what she can find out. Eric begins to act a little odd and nervous which only confuses Kelly more. Strange things keep happening around her too such as the past being rewritten and warping her memories, her tattoos disappearing, and everyone she meets possibly being the one who knows what happened to her.

Well written and engaging, The Other Me will surely surprise you till the end. Though this is a mystery thriller, the author adds some elements of science fiction, giving the story a refreshing twist. Recommended for fans of Blake Crouch and anyone interested in the concept of alternative lives. An enjoyable read and I will definitely be on the lookout for what this debut author comes out with next.

Thank you to Netgalley and to the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for a review.

My biggest issue with this one was that I just hated the characters. I wanted to like them but I just didn't. I did still enjoy how the story ended. But I wished that the characters would have been more likable. It really read like a debut book. The mystery was sub par and the overall explication wasn't there. If you leave belief behind and you end up liking these characters you might enjoy this one.

A woman stumbles through a portal from her current life to another one. As she tries to figure it out, she discovers what she’s missing from the life she left and what might have been. Author Sarah Zachrich Jeng plays with time travel and the mysteries of technology in the somewhat intriguing but ultimately lackluster novel The Other Me.

Kelly Holter is all set to celebrate her 29th birthday, except the night really isn’t about her. Her best friend, Linnea, is having a showing at a swanky Chicago art gallery, and Kelly is there to support her. She’s also feeling a little envious; while both Kelly and Linnea received their degrees from the prestigious Art Institute of Chicago at the same time, Linnea is the one whose career has taken off since.

Kelly can’t seem to get hers off the ground and works a lot of side jobs to keep herself afloat. It doesn’t help that her entire family thinks art school is a joke and told her so when she went. Now Kelly is starting to wonder whether they were right. Linnea’s surrounded by people wanting to buy her art pieces; Kelly is waiting for something to happen.

At the showing, she excuses herself to go to the bathroom only to open the door and step right into a different life. It’s still her birthday, but all of a sudden she’s standing in a restaurant in Davis City, Michigan, with her family and friends throwing her a surprise party. Also, she’s married to Eric from high school. She barely knew him then, but now he’s putting his arm around her waist and Kelly’s body automatically leans into him.

The strangest thing of all is Kelly has memories of a life with Eric: graduating high school and turning down a scholarship to the Art Institute; going to college together; getting married. Yet she also remembers her life in Chicago where she’s relationship-free and hustling to pay her rent. In her Chicago life, she’s going after her career with intention and dedication even if there isn’t much success. In Davis City, art is something she used to do. Now she’s filling her days with short-term graphic design gigs.

Nothing makes sense, and Kelly desperately wants to go back to life in Chicago with her tattoos, her short hair, and her vegetarian diet. Here her hair flows over her shoulders, her arms are ink free, and no one can serve a meal without some kind of meat involved. Also, Eric seems to adore her and want nothing more than to make her happy, yet Kelly senses something below the surface. She mentions fights they’ve had that he doesn’t remember, and he’s more than insistent that she take their giant dog, Bear, with her every time she goes running. The fact that she runs at all is a shock; Chicago Kelly got winded climbing the stairs to the train.

As she digs into her Davis City self and starts to pry into Eric’s connection with a mysterious tech startup, in her heart Kelly waffles between her life in Chicago and the one she’s stuck in now. She doesn’t like to admit it, but Davis City Kelly had some advantages that Chicago Kelly doesn’t. Still, she’s determined to figure out why she walked from one version of her life into another one, even if it ends up costing her the most important things in both.

Author Sarah Zachrich Jeng offers an interesting premise in this take on parallel universes. Readers will figure out early on that Eric’s connection to the tech startup has something to do with Kelly’s present circumstances. Yet Jeng manages to keep some of the elements of the plot a surprise, which will keep readers guessing.

What also keeps them guessing—all the way to the end of the book—is exactly how the tech works. Broad and somewhat vague descriptions are used, and the fact that Eric wrings his hands at it all doesn’t help much. Also, the fact that his love for Kelly is what kept him going on the bizarre venture doesn’t quite hold weight.

Kelly’s agency in her own fate is invigorating. She doesn’t give up until she has answers to her questions, but she also hesitates at times on whether she wants to go back to her Chicago life. That hesitation comes across as realistic and grounded; much of the technical aspects of the plot, particularly late in the book don’t.

This book is good for those who like to ask “what if” and don’t mind implausible answers.

Haven’t we all at one time or another pondered what our lives might have been like had we made different choices when we were younger? And what if you were given the opportunity to actually live that life?

But, what if YOU weren’t the one to make that decision!

Kelly is living the life of a struggling artist in Chicago. She suddenly finds herself attending a party in Michigan with her husband. Problem is, Kelly has absolutely no recollection of being married. For that matter, any part of this life!🏻‍♀️.

Will Kelly remain here in this life? Can she get the answers to reveal how exactly she wound up here in the first place?

This was a cleverly developed thriller that I thoroughly enjoyed. I have to admit I got just a bit lost on the sci-fi part of it. My brain has a bit of difficulty thinking outside the box and this one stretched my abilities to the limit!

This was a debut from a very talented new author. Now on my radar and looking forward to more!

A buddy read with Susanne

Posted to: https://books-are-a-girls-best-friend...

Thank you to NetGalley, Edelweiss and Berkley Publishing.

3.5 stars, rounded to 4

Kelly is an artist who is living in Chicago. One night on her birthday, she walks through a door and is transported to a different version of her life. She now has two sets of memories but no one around her seems to know her old life.

I loved this book! Great concept, great execution, and a satisfying ending. I was hooked at first, but then found the middle section to be a bit slow. I only wish it was a tiny bit shorter!

Imagine walking through a door and into another life. That’s what happens to striving Chicago artist Kelly Holter on her 29th birthday. Suddenly she’s back in her hometown in Michigan, married to a man she barely knew in high school.

She’s completely disoriented, because suddenly she has memories from both of her lives, and she needs to make sense of why this switch happened and whether it can be reversed.

A speculative thriller exploring cutting-edge technology, "The Other Me" is the debut novel of Sarah Zachrich Jeng, a web developer originally from Michigan who now lives in Florida. The following is a Q&A with Jeng and Times correspondent Jane Ammeson.

Can you tell our readers where the idea for your book came from?

The idea came to me while I was thinking about wish fulfillment and the classic “guy meets girl, guy loses girl, guy moves mountains to get girl” narrative. These kinds of stories are often told from the man’s point of view, framed as romantic and wholly positive. I wanted to look at it through a slightly darker lens and from the woman’s perspective, so I used a sci-fi trope that completely takes away Kelly’s choice in the matter. Whatever happened to make her fall in love with Eric, her husband, it has already happened in this new life she finds herself living.

What kind of research did you do for this book?


I researched the art world and women artists through both the 20th and 21st centuries to get an idea of what qualifications and training they would need and what a woman artist just starting her career would be up against. Kelly is not from a privileged background, so I had to give her a scholarship to art school, which in real life probably wouldn’t come close to paying her way through. However, I wanted there to be some tension between her drive to create and the necessity of making a living, so I took a bit of creative license.

I have some experience of startup culture, but things are always changing, so I read up on that. Much of what made it into the book is exaggerated, but some, unfortunately, is not. I also did research on the capabilities of artificial intelligence, as well as some armchair physics. The tech depicted in the book isn’t possible (at least not that we know of!) but I wanted to have enough background knowledge to let readers suspend disbelief. I was less interested in completely accurate science than exploring themes of identity, fate, and choice, and I hope any physicists or AI experts among my readers will forgive me!

It must have been complex trying to keep straight what happened, what didn't happen, the new life, the old life — how did you do that?

Spreadsheets, lists, and an ugly hand-drawn diagram or two. I had timelines written out, as well as lists of small changes in Kelly’s life and the ripple effects they might cause. I really didn’t know what I was getting into when I started, and it’ll probably be a while before I write a book like this again! (Famous last words.)

Kelly wonders if she is going crazy, What on earth is happening to her? She was at her best friend's art show, went to the bathroom and disappeared into a completely different life. Now she finds herself married to some guy she barely knew in high school and living a completely suburban life. Is she crazy? How the heck can she figure out what is going on? I admit this book had me turning pages far too late at night to finish.

What I loved: Author Sarah Zachrich Jeng pays attention to details and it shows in her writing. Crisp, clear and wonderfully developed characters really add to her plot line. The pace is fast and kept me engaged! Definitely a win and I highly recommend reading The Other Me!!

#TheOtherMe #NetGalley #BerkleyWritesStrongWomen #bookstagram #readingiscool #booklover #books
#BerkleyPublishing #BeritTalksBooks #BerkleyBuddyReads

What an interesting premise that pulled me right in- Kelly is at her birthday party in Chicago, goes to the bathroom and when she opens the door she's in an alternate life back in her hometown and married to a guy she barely knew in high school. Only Kelly has memories of both lives but no one else remembers her. This was fun and dynamic until about the 40 % mark and then it became very monotonous and repetitive. It felt as if the author didn't trust me to remember details and it was annoying. The time travel technology was way too scientific and boring. I didn't end up enjoying the second half all that much

I am rarely disappointed by a book, and often discover promising authors in debuts. Time travel has long been a favorite aspect for me in a novel, that of the woman finding herself in strange surroundings and surviving despite being a woman in a lower station in life by virtue of their sex. Since Outlander, I've loved this type of story. Jeng's debut offered such a concept, but seemed to fall short of having thought out the implications of repeated dabbling with a timeline. Also, I found the heroine's reactions to people and situations to be a bit too constrained than was likely.. I did hang in there to the end to fulfill my role as an early reviewer, but I can't say I'd anxiously await another novel from this author without more support to the endeavor from publisher and editors.

I went into The Other Me completely blind and I think that is the best way to go.

Kelly is living in Chicago. She's an artist and is seemingly enjoying her life. Then on her birthday, she is suddenly transported into a different life. She's in Michigan, near where she grew up, married to a guy she barely knew in high school. But she's flooded with memories - she started dating him, she gave up art school to get married to him and now she's a graphic designer.

What happened? Which life is real? Why is she having dual timelines and able to remember both of them? This is a mix of sci-fi (light) and thriller as Kelly tries to figure out what is going on - and which life is truly her own. Once she figures that out, she also has to decide which life she truly wants.

This book was good and I wanted to keep reading. I also liked the end - everything wrapped up very well.

Even though I would say that this book wasn't for me, it certainly might be for some. I did find that the plot was fairly slow and I had a hard time finding interest in it for much of the story. I didn't feel that I was connected to many of the characters, and to be honest most of them I didn't care for anyway.

I was excited to read this since I often enjoy mind-bending, multi-verse type books. This is a good book, but didn't fully meet my expectations. I couldn't completely buy into Eric's character, and Kelly seemed way too stuck in her own head and thoughts. I think a lot of people will enjoy reading this book and thinking about all the other paths their own lives could have taken if different choices were made..

Kelly is an artist living in Chicago, celebrating her birthday and her best friend’s art opening. Things aren’t perfect, not what she expected out of life, but she is happy. She starts to feel off, so she walks through the bathroom door at the art show, only to find herself entering an Italian restaurant in her home town in Michigan.

Her clothes are different. Her tattoos are gone. And she has a husband, Eric, her high school boyfriend who she hasn’t talked to in years.

Kelly is stuck with having two sets of memories: things that happened in her old life aren’t always the same with this new life. She has no one to talk to about this so she’s trying to figure it all out on her own.

This book is a slow burn with odd pacing. I enjoyed that the author gave hints throughout and we were able to solve the mystery with Kelly instead of everything being shown to us at once. I wasn’t thrilled with the ending and while I enjoyed the writing (and really liked Kelly as a character), I didn’t like the answer to the mystery. This was a hard one for me to rate because of this, so I put it at a 3.5.

This book came out last month and is a debut — very much looking forward to what Sarah Zachrich Jeng writes in the future! Thanks to Netgalley for the eARC.

A unique approach to a familiar concept. An enjoyable read.

Kelly is attending the opening of her best friend’s art exhibit in Chicago. As a fellow artist, she is a little jealous, but wouldn’t miss supporting her friend. When she starts to feel a little sick, she heads to the bathroom where she opens the door and walks into an Italian restaurant far from her beloved Chicago. What just happened? Her whole family is there! Even her screw-up brother, who has a kid? What? And someone is calling her name and touches her shoulder as she realizes that this is someone that she knew from high school and what’s more, he’s her husband!

As Kelly tries to navigate this new life and figure out what happened, she can’t shake memories of her life in Chicago. Will the people there remember her? Or is this a full alternate reality? Can she get back? Does she want to?

I absolutely love this kind of speculative fiction. When I get a mind-twisting story that makes me stretch to figure out what is going on, it just makes me day even better. While I’ve read this type of concept before in other books, I like how the author played out Kelly’s experiences. As a reader, it makes you think about what life would be like if you had made different choices at crucial crossroads in your own life. Needless to say, this story will have you wondering the whole way through until you hit the unforeseen twist of what really caused the crossover.

There is quite a bit of language (understandably so with the experiences) and some minor sex scenes that aren’t terribly graphic but could make some readers uncomfortable. I recommend this to mature readers who enjoy this genre.

I received a complimentary copy of this title from the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within are my own.

Wow! I can’t imagine how crazy Kelly felt! This book was so good! I also got the audiobook to listen to while I followed along. I highly recommend doing that. The narrator did a fantastic job! This was super fast paced and very hard to put down. If you are in a reading slump, try this one!! Kelly was very likable. She was going through so much and somehow she managed to keep it all together. Ugh! There are so many things that I want to say about the characters but I don’t want to ruin this book for anyone. The author was super creative and the book was easy to imagine. I would definitely read more from this author!

I received a digital ARC from NetGalley.
I was pretty impressed, but then the book left a bit of an unpleasant aftertaste, if that makes any sense. (hence my drop from a 5 to a 4.) The control and manipulation was already creepy, the degree to which Eric took it made him totally irredeemable to me. That Kelly entertained redemption didn't make her empathetic in my eyes so much as she was broken down. Still on the fence of whether to recommend this one or not.