It was going well until it lost me. I had a hard time getting into this book, could have been my mood at the time. Narrator was great though!

Engaging, immersive, and well-narrated. A recommended purchase for collections where time travel stories are popular.

DNF @30%

I only liked the beginning of this book. Once it got to the main character going to the alternate dementions and he meant the other woman, it lost me.

Marc Guggenheim's In Any Lifetime masterfully combines hard science fiction with romance, exploring the vast potential of time travel and parallel worlds. The narrative follows Nobel laureate Jonas on his desperate multiverse search for his wife, Amanda. Despite its scientific complexity, the story's engaging plot keeps readers hooked and ultimately pays off.
Guggenheim masterfully weaves a complex narrative that spans multiple timelines and dimensions. While initially challenging, the story's three main temporal threads - five years past, two years ago, and the present - gradually become more navigable as the plot unfolds. The author's careful timeline markers serve as guideposts, keeping readers grounded in this intricate tale. The scientific elements, though occasionally dense, add intriguing layers to the story without overshadowing its emotional core.
The novel's strength lies in its seamless blend of science fiction and heartfelt romance. At its center is the tension between Jonas's obsessive quest for Amanda and Victor's conflicting goals, driving the narrative forward with palpable intensity. Guggenheim strikes a delicate balance between intellectual sci-fi concepts and the raw emotion of a love story, crafting a novel that resonates with both science enthusiasts and romance readers.

4 stars

I'm not sure how to categorize this book. It seems like it's too many genres in one. Books can be more than one genre for sure, but I feel like this one is just one too many. It's a thriller, a romance, a sci-fi, a fantasy? I feel like stories with multiple genres normally pick one to be the main genre and this one doesn't seem to do that. Bouncing between all of them and never quite cementing the underlying purpose of the story.

The back and forth of the timelines were a little confusing at first since there's like 3 (5 years ago, 2ish years ago, and now) even once the alternate dimension stuff started, but as I got more into the book it got easier and easier to follow. There's a lot of science talk in this book. A LOT and while I have a basic understanding (like basic basic) of everything that was discussed and most of it went over my head, it didn't really take away from the story. I was still able to follow the plot and just trust that what he said is truth.

My immediate reaction after finishing this audiobook was 5 stars! Then I sat and thought about my review for a day or two and realized while I still really enjoyed this book, I don't quite feel that same "omg" about it the next day and dropped it down to 4 stars. We know so much about Jonas. Everything really. Him and Amanda had a cute meet cute and start to the story and we know about one of their marriage troubles, but we know basically nothing else about Amanda. I felt no real connection to her or why he felt compelled (even going against what the universe "wants") to get back to her. The Romance reader in me wanted a little bit more to make his obsessive mission of getting back to her everything/one be damned seem worth it. I thought him and the other woman Eva would've had a perfectly wonderful life if he'd stayed with her. I felt a bigger connection with her than I did with Amanda.

On to Viktor. I get his hatred of Jonas, but I feel like he's a little over the top and the level at which this plays out seems out of nowhere. Maybe that's the point. They start out collogues and friends and then he thinks Jonas steals his work and then sets out to ruin his life not only in this universe but in all universes? When Victor comes back as the crazy man trying to kill Jonas I honestly forgot who he originally was, but it was easy to remember after going back a bit to figure it out. Also, like how did Viktor know Jonas was looking for Amanda in the multi-verse? In all the time Jonas was bettering the technology to use it to randomly hop into multiverses to check them out, how did Viktor make it even better to not only be able to jump into specific multi-verses but also follow Jonas everywhere he went with his rando (yet the same every time) assassins to kill him? Like originally Viktor was working on this for 14 years before he hit a wall and gave up. Jonas told him he thought he figured out Viktor's block and could get it to work and Viktor wrote him off. But now he's able to build on Jonas' work and then some in such a quick amount of time? I don't know. Again, I'm not sciency. Maybe this is the issue with not being sciency and reading a sciency book. maybe everything I said above has a great explanation and I just don't understand it because I don't science.

There are some other issues I had with the book, but I feel like I'm nit picking at this point. Ramón de Ocampo did a great job narrating this book and I feel like if I had to read it with my eyes I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it as much as I did. Ramón is the true hero in my eyes here.

All in all, I really did still like this book minus all the critiques above. I mean, if you're going to suspend reality enough to follow a man through the multiverse to find his wife who died in his timeline, then you can suspend it enough to get over the stuff above. I honestly think this would make a wonderful TV show or movie. It really has the potential to be everything that people want now a days. The multi-verse and time travel is pretty hot right now. I do think though that Romance/Thriller readers might need to pass on this. Unless you're semi-interested in Sci-Fi you may not like this at all, but, hey, I'm not a sci-fi person and I enjoyed it still, so who knows!

Thank you, NetGalley and Brilliance Publishing/Brilliance Audio for the ALC of this book.