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wordwound's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
whatiswhatwas's review against another edition
2.0
This is a terrible book. The premise is nonsensical... I say this as someone who thoroughly enjoys fantasy. But I can't get behind a plot that revolves around the impossible and doesn't explain the how or why.
Aside from the ridiculousness, it's also a terrible plot. Boring story line with a lackluster (and unsurprising) ending.
The *only* reason this gets two stars instead of one... there were more than a few really excellent lines in this book that made me go back and thing, "Yeah. You totally captured that feeling/opinion/something that makes my heart quiken."
But... there are other books that do that and don't suck.
Aside from the ridiculousness, it's also a terrible plot. Boring story line with a lackluster (and unsurprising) ending.
The *only* reason this gets two stars instead of one... there were more than a few really excellent lines in this book that made me go back and thing, "Yeah. You totally captured that feeling/opinion/something that makes my heart quiken."
But... there are other books that do that and don't suck.
meghan111's review against another edition
4.0
Not a great cover. This would have been a better cover for all editions, not just the paperback:
Electroshock therapy causes Greta to time travel to different versions of her same New York apartment: she leaves 1985 and goes back to both 1918 and 1945. In those years she is a slightly different version of herself surrounded by her same family members and ex-boyfriend. In 1985, Greta is grieving her twin brother's death from AIDs. In the other years she travels to, he is still alive. But he's unhappily closeted and may be threatened and persecuted for his sexuality. A twist of fate leads us to be born into the plagues of our time.
I felt a bit distant from the characters, but the writing and the different settings of the different time periods were quite beautiful.
Electroshock therapy causes Greta to time travel to different versions of her same New York apartment: she leaves 1985 and goes back to both 1918 and 1945. In those years she is a slightly different version of herself surrounded by her same family members and ex-boyfriend. In 1985, Greta is grieving her twin brother's death from AIDs. In the other years she travels to, he is still alive. But he's unhappily closeted and may be threatened and persecuted for his sexuality. A twist of fate leads us to be born into the plagues of our time.
I felt a bit distant from the characters, but the writing and the different settings of the different time periods were quite beautiful.
michellewords's review against another edition
4.0
I put this book on my TBR in 2013, about a year after my dad died from a fast, hard fight with esophageal cancer and five years before my little brother killed himself. I don't know if it would have had the same impact it I read it earlier than now.
Greta Wells experiences a lot of heavy loss in 1985 and tries several different treatments for her severe depression before landing at the final door of ECT (aka electric shock therapy). Things are different than she expects. After each session, her consciousness travels into an alternate time and world she could have existed in between 1918 and 1941. In these alternate timelines, she finds those she lost but they are different and times are different.
I think this book is a really fascinating look on love, life, and self. Greta begins her journey looking for a way to find her old self. Instead she discovers that self is created by love and circumstance.
Or the idea of our desires. One Greta wanted to have her twin brother back, one wanted her side piece back, and one wanted her husband. Each desire was different due to the same things: circumstances, time, love, etc.
That says it too simple, I think, but it's the best I have for this layered book.
Andrew Sean Greer has such a wonderful way with words. His prose within this book felt so purposeful and soulful. I highlighted so many passages that were meaningful to me.
The ending was really good, but felt like it was missing a little to help wrap it together.
Side note:
Right now in social distancing, I found the 1918 sections that discussed and detailed the Spanish flu to be a little unnerving-a little too on the nose.
I really liked this book but I can tell it's not for everyone, so I'm a little leery to recommend to people in general.
Greta Wells experiences a lot of heavy loss in 1985 and tries several different treatments for her severe depression before landing at the final door of ECT (aka electric shock therapy). Things are different than she expects. After each session, her consciousness travels into an alternate time and world she could have existed in between 1918 and 1941. In these alternate timelines, she finds those she lost but they are different and times are different.
I think this book is a really fascinating look on love, life, and self. Greta begins her journey looking for a way to find her old self. Instead she discovers that self is created by love and circumstance.
Or the idea of our desires. One Greta wanted to have her twin brother back, one wanted her side piece back, and one wanted her husband. Each desire was different due to the same things: circumstances, time, love, etc.
That says it too simple, I think, but it's the best I have for this layered book.
Andrew Sean Greer has such a wonderful way with words. His prose within this book felt so purposeful and soulful. I highlighted so many passages that were meaningful to me.
The ending was really good, but felt like it was missing a little to help wrap it together.
Side note:
Right now in social distancing, I found the 1918 sections that discussed and detailed the Spanish flu to be a little unnerving-a little too on the nose.
I really liked this book but I can tell it's not for everyone, so I'm a little leery to recommend to people in general.
bmg20's review against another edition
4.0
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Source: Library Checkout
'The impossible happens once to each of us.'
Greta Wells is devastated after losing her twin brother Felix to AIDS and after her long term partner Nathan also leaves her. Burdened by a deep depression that is slowly getting the better of her, she takes the advice of her Aunt Ruth and visists a doctor who recommends electroconvulsive therapy. Ironically, right before her first session she considers, "How I longed to live in any time but this one. It seemed cursed with sorrow and death."
The night following her first session she goes to sleep in 1985 and arises the next day in 1918. She wakes up as herself just under slightly different circumstances: her brother is alive and she is married to Nathan but is in love with a younger man named Leo. She discovers that her 1918 self is also undergoing electroconvulsive therapy and again, the night following her session she arises the next day in another time; this time in 1941. The cycle continues: 1985, 1918, 1941 and so on for 25 treatments.
"You’re all the same, you’re all Greta. You’re all trying to make things better, whatever that means to you. For you, it’s Felix you want to save. For another, it’s Nathan. For this one, it’s Leo she wants to resurrect. I understand. Don’t we all have someone we’d like to save from the wreckage?"
This is a time travel story, yet it's not really. It touches on the possibilities of past lives and how your actions resonate to future lives and reincarnations of a sort. Because while 1985 Greta is traveling to her past selves, these individuals she's 'taking over' for are also on the same adventure and they're all trying to correct past mistakes and secure their own happiness.
"Is there any greater pain to know what could be, and yet be powerless to make it be?"
The heart of the story is of course Greta, her lives, and the individuals she loves in these lives. It's a tale of romance and how each Greta found (and loved) Nathan but after experiencing each of these lives a wrench gets thrown into the works as she is forced to consider the possibility that he is not her one true love, that she's been blinded into repetition and is only resorting to what she knows.
While each life could easily showcase the historical detailing of the time, this is glazed over. In 1918, we have the flu epidemic and World War I is ending. In 1941, World War II is beginning. In 1985, we have the AIDS epidemic. While living in these time periods, Greta maintains a certain absence as if she's truly just a visitor and isn't quite experiencing the moments around her. For someone who said, "...not all lives are equal, that the time we live in affects the person we are, more than I had ever though" I really wished to see the transformation of her character due to her environment and the impacts her surroundings had on her as a person.
The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells is treated as a serious tale of time travel yet is rife with flaws in its design. A definite suspension of disbelief is required because of how truly 'Impossible' the story is. Despite this (and the crazy unraveling that occurred at the end), it all managed to still work. It would be easy to nitpick it to death but in all actuality, time travel is not an exact science and different variations are definitely possible and this was quite an original interpretation of it. The story of Greta Wells is an imaginative tale about past lives and the implausible impossibility of "what if".
Source: Library Checkout
'The impossible happens once to each of us.'
Greta Wells is devastated after losing her twin brother Felix to AIDS and after her long term partner Nathan also leaves her. Burdened by a deep depression that is slowly getting the better of her, she takes the advice of her Aunt Ruth and visists a doctor who recommends electroconvulsive therapy. Ironically, right before her first session she considers, "How I longed to live in any time but this one. It seemed cursed with sorrow and death."
The night following her first session she goes to sleep in 1985 and arises the next day in 1918. She wakes up as herself just under slightly different circumstances: her brother is alive and she is married to Nathan but is in love with a younger man named Leo. She discovers that her 1918 self is also undergoing electroconvulsive therapy and again, the night following her session she arises the next day in another time; this time in 1941. The cycle continues: 1985, 1918, 1941 and so on for 25 treatments.
"You’re all the same, you’re all Greta. You’re all trying to make things better, whatever that means to you. For you, it’s Felix you want to save. For another, it’s Nathan. For this one, it’s Leo she wants to resurrect. I understand. Don’t we all have someone we’d like to save from the wreckage?"
This is a time travel story, yet it's not really. It touches on the possibilities of past lives and how your actions resonate to future lives and reincarnations of a sort. Because while 1985 Greta is traveling to her past selves, these individuals she's 'taking over' for are also on the same adventure and they're all trying to correct past mistakes and secure their own happiness.
"Is there any greater pain to know what could be, and yet be powerless to make it be?"
The heart of the story is of course Greta, her lives, and the individuals she loves in these lives. It's a tale of romance and how each Greta found (and loved) Nathan but after experiencing each of these lives a wrench gets thrown into the works as she is forced to consider the possibility that he is not her one true love, that she's been blinded into repetition and is only resorting to what she knows.
While each life could easily showcase the historical detailing of the time, this is glazed over. In 1918, we have the flu epidemic and World War I is ending. In 1941, World War II is beginning. In 1985, we have the AIDS epidemic. While living in these time periods, Greta maintains a certain absence as if she's truly just a visitor and isn't quite experiencing the moments around her. For someone who said, "...not all lives are equal, that the time we live in affects the person we are, more than I had ever though" I really wished to see the transformation of her character due to her environment and the impacts her surroundings had on her as a person.
The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells is treated as a serious tale of time travel yet is rife with flaws in its design. A definite suspension of disbelief is required because of how truly 'Impossible' the story is. Despite this (and the crazy unraveling that occurred at the end), it all managed to still work. It would be easy to nitpick it to death but in all actuality, time travel is not an exact science and different variations are definitely possible and this was quite an original interpretation of it. The story of Greta Wells is an imaginative tale about past lives and the implausible impossibility of "what if".
mwgerard's review against another edition
4.0
The Ultimate Throwback Thursday
This unusual book questions the reality of time and place, and our ability to ever really know what is real. It is told from the point of view of Greta Wells, the surviving twin of a brother who died too young. Part of her attempt to recover from her depression is to undergo convulsive shock therapy. but rather than reawakening in her doctor’s office, she finds herself in her apartment, but in 1918. She’s still herself, with the same family members. This is a different version of her life.
She repeats this reawakening again, this time in 1941, just before Pearl Harbor. And in every version she makes choices that begin to affect the entire web of time and place. her depression is real and profound, and in every time for a different reason.
Please support independent reviewers and read my full post here: http://mwgerard.com/accent-impossible-lives-greta-wells/
This unusual book questions the reality of time and place, and our ability to ever really know what is real. It is told from the point of view of Greta Wells, the surviving twin of a brother who died too young. Part of her attempt to recover from her depression is to undergo convulsive shock therapy. but rather than reawakening in her doctor’s office, she finds herself in her apartment, but in 1918. She’s still herself, with the same family members. This is a different version of her life.
She repeats this reawakening again, this time in 1941, just before Pearl Harbor. And in every version she makes choices that begin to affect the entire web of time and place. her depression is real and profound, and in every time for a different reason.
Please support independent reviewers and read my full post here: http://mwgerard.com/accent-impossible-lives-greta-wells/
simtara's review against another edition
2.0
I was thoroughly underwhelmed by this story. The premise was interesting but the delivery dragged in circles that went nowhere.
I planned on DNFing this book, but kept at it in the hopes that it would either get better or end soon. I pushed through because it was an audiobook and didn't require much active effort. Had it been a physical book, I would have put it down a few pages in.
This book proved that not all authors can write from a different gender's perspective; the characters and their motivations were hollow, inauthentic, and one-dimensional.
A very weak 2/5 because there's a kernel of something that could have been in this plot. I think I'm being generous with this rating.
I planned on DNFing this book, but kept at it in the hopes that it would either get better or end soon. I pushed through because it was an audiobook and didn't require much active effort. Had it been a physical book, I would have put it down a few pages in.
This book proved that not all authors can write from a different gender's perspective; the characters and their motivations were hollow, inauthentic, and one-dimensional.
A very weak 2/5 because there's a kernel of something that could have been in this plot. I think I'm being generous with this rating.
rifelife's review against another edition
4.0
Really enjoyed this book’s structure and the characters! It’s got time-travel but with a very “real” feel that almost reads like historical fiction (my favorite genre) when Greta’s in each of her three settings. I’m also impressed with Greer’s ability to represent an authentic female voice! I kept forgetting this was written by a male author!
laniedays's review against another edition
4.0
“And finally: Who are we when we’re not ourselves?”
What initially drew me to this book was the cover. I know I know, don’t judge a book by its cover, but I’m so glad I did. I don’t have any problem suspending belief to enjoy a book. If you can’t this definitely isn’t the book for you. Aside from the time travel I feel like the few people aware of the time travel were weirdly chill with it. But the characters in this book are so beautifully written & honestly the ending made me cry. I’m not big on science fiction but this was so wonderfully blending with historical fiction (which I love) that it just felt right. This is probably fighting for the top place in my favorite new book I read this year. (Competing close with I, Eliza Hamilton, The Child Finder, & The German Girl (all of which also made me cry))
What initially drew me to this book was the cover. I know I know, don’t judge a book by its cover, but I’m so glad I did. I don’t have any problem suspending belief to enjoy a book. If you can’t this definitely isn’t the book for you. Aside from the time travel I feel like the few people aware of the time travel were weirdly chill with it. But the characters in this book are so beautifully written & honestly the ending made me cry. I’m not big on science fiction but this was so wonderfully blending with historical fiction (which I love) that it just felt right. This is probably fighting for the top place in my favorite new book I read this year. (Competing close with I, Eliza Hamilton, The Child Finder, & The German Girl (all of which also made me cry))
julesanne's review against another edition
2.0
This story could provide an interesting discussion regarding time travel, views of sexuality in America and how relationships have changed over the past century. I found the book not well written. The plot seemed to fall apart in the second half of the book. I found the main character having an unhealthy obsession with her brother. She seemed to impose her 1980's values onto the 1918's and 1941 time period. Her only concern seemed to be, to be with her brother, not that her brother was actually safe and happy.