Format: Hardcover, 464 pages
Release Date: August 8, 2017
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Source: Publisher
Genre: YA / Contemporary / Social Themes
Three years ago, Kennedy Rhodes secretly made the most important decision of her life. She declined her acceptance to the prestigious Windsor Academy to attend the local public school with her longtime crush, who had finally asked her out. It seems it was the right choice—she and Austin are still together, and Kennedy is now the editor in chief of the school's award-winning newspaper. But then Kennedy's world is shattered one evening when she walks in on Austin kissing her best friend, and she wonders if maybe her life would have been better if she'd made the other choice. As fate would have it, she's about to find out . . .A fresh and funny novel about how one different choice could change everything.
Kennedy falls and hits her head and mysteriously awakes as a student at the Windsor Academy. And not just any student: Kennedy is at the top of her class, she's popular, she has the coolest best friend around, and she's practically a shoo-in for Columbia University. But as she navigates her new world, she starts to wonder whether this alternate version of herself really is as happy as everyone seems to believe. Is it possible this Kennedy is harboring secrets and regrets of her own? A fresh and funny story about how one different choice could change everything, Jessica Brody's In Some Other Life will keep readers guessing, and find them cheering for Kennedy until the final page.
In Some Other Life, by author Jessica Brody, is a standalone young adult contemporary story that focuses on 18-year old Kennedy Rhodes. On the outside it would appear that Kennedy has everything a person can ask for. She's the Editor-in-Chief of her HS newspaper which has won national awards for three straight years and is up for their fourth. She has a boyfriend of 3 1/2 years in Austin, and a best friend in Delaney Patel who is also on the newspaper. Her parents are doing exactly what they love to do, but there is something missing from Kennedy's life.
Three years ago, Kennedy made the decision not to attend Windsor Academy even though she was accepted. Windsor is an elite private school that is way beyond anything Southwest HS has going for it. She is obsessed with certain students web pages, and imagines of what life would have been like had she chosen Windsor over Southwest. Then the unthinkable happens. No, I dare say that I don't believe that it is the unthinkable. It happens throughout life, and throughout your formidable years, so why shouldn't it happen to the girl who seemingly has it all?
I'm talking, of course, about cheating. When your so called boyfriend and your so called best friend, who apparently have the same tastes, have been cheating on you for months and you were too busy to see what was happening. So, when she discovers the cheating, Kennedy finds herself at Windsor begging for them to allow her to attend for the final months of her senior year. After she hits her head and wakes up in the alternate version of her life where she chose to attend the private school, she finds that it’s not as perfect of a world as she once thought.
Her mother is miserable. Her father is miserable. Her brother is such a dynamic and wonderful character who doesn't change in either reality. Plus, it appears as though this realities Kennedy is at the top of the food chain, and she is friends with those she stalked on line. How in the world did this happen and why? My message about this story is that sometimes life isn't always greener on the other side. You can hope and wish and pray for better things but we don't always get what we want. Sometimes we get exactly what we need at the time we are given the opportunities Kennedy was given.
This is definitely a story about what if's. What if Kennedy had made the choice to go to Windsor instead of choosing Austin? Would her life have been any different? One could say that Kennedy is an overachiever in many aspects. Just try to get past her interactions with the company that puts her newspaper together if you don't believe me. Kennedy is a character who is the total opposite of what I did and accomplished in HS & College. I didn't exactly dream about attending another school, or participate in the school newspaper, or apply for Columbia so I could be a journalist. (For the record, I attended Ithaca College School of Communications after 4 years of the Navy.)
Not really an original concept, but it is an intriguing idea of parallel universes. However, I guess I will remain against those who willingly cheat on another person be it with their spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, or best friend. It is inconceivable to me that our heroine would be willing to forgive so easily. Life is too short to just allow yourself to be abused and then laugh it off because life seems to blame you for not catching on to what was happening.
