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A review by booksy_hvn
The Love of My Other Life by C.J. Connolly
2.0
Thank you Netgalley for this ARC! This review contains spoilers.
Honestly, this wasn't the best read of my year. The first like 70 pages were quite easy to read, but after that...there were many aspects I was really conflicted about.
Firstly, the plot is interesting but the plotwist was very predictable and the stroy could feel very repetitive at times. I really liked the aspect of them somehow "communicating" through dreams and if they have a look into it, the story would have been so much more interesting.
Death and the lost of a dear one is treated with respect and it impacts the characters lives. However. when Josie 2.0 discovers that his (death in his world) brother was going to move to Australia, she acted like it was the worst thing it could happen to her, and compared the situation with him being dead. She mentions how she wouldn't really see him, his family, were going to talk less...but they could still have the opportunity of talking and seeing each other, and that she didn't have in her reality. As a foreigner myself, I understand how much a change that can make, seeing your family less can affect you, but every little thing is better than that person not even existing in your reality. This aspect really bothered me because I was so mad with Josie and her attitude towards her brother moving. She already was far away from her family and that didn't matter as much, how much of a difference could make his brother being in another country? I understand this conflict was mainly so they could both change back to their realities without doubts but it was poorly done.
The story is separated in "Me" chapters and "Her" chapters, and the beginning of both very exactly the same, I had to skim through many of the first chapters cause of it. Not only that, there are way too many unnecessary descriptions about food, places etc that really didn't add anything to the plot. It can be great for making a meticulous scenario but really...I couldn't care less about the so expensive food and recipies they were eating etc. Instead of descriptions there could have been moment of maybe interior monologues so we could understand how the characters were feeling about what was happening. This leads me to the characters.
The characters...I couldn't like any of them and I tried really. They were supposed to be like 40 aprox. but they were acting like teenagers and couldn't talk to each other for the love of god. The main characters have conflicts/problems. Didn't solve a single one. They really couldn't express their feelings while having a convo. They tried to talk about it, not really achieve it, act like nothing happened the next day. So almost every relatioship conflict didn't even have a solution cause they didn't.talk.about.it.
Feeling were quite vaguely written. Ithink this is the main reason why I couldn't connect with the characters: I couldn't understand why they were acting the way they were. Characters fall in love and get together with one another but idk because one of them was just being nice?? the bare minimum?? making food or respecting the other's personal place??
Men were just awful. Every one of them (except the brother they gave him a good character development i liked him in the end), but the main love interests left much to be desired. Rob had a mask of being the nice rich guy but he had moment in which he was acting like an asshole, just thinking about himself and not really caring about Josie. Peter? Insisted and insisted and insisted about them being together even while being with his girlfriend... Like I said, seem like they both acted like they were 17 or something.
The Josie's were not much better. The first thing both highlight is their differences in body image. Josie 2.0 was really disrespectful towards the bigger body of Josie 1.0, and that made me uncomfortable. The differences in their physical aspect didn't really impact their other life but it was treated like "slim is better than thick" or at least being slim was "the better/improved option". There were many things that were different about their lives, but that one could really have been portrayed in a better way. Maybe if people around them treated them differently because of their physical aspect, so that it could show the fatphobia in rich people communities...but it had no impact on the plot. None.
I was really struggling to finish it but I didn't want to DNF it. Initially gave it almost 3 stars but going over everything I've written...I don't think I enjoyed it enough to give it that much. I understand other people could like the book, but this just wasn't my type of read.
Honestly, this wasn't the best read of my year. The first like 70 pages were quite easy to read, but after that...there were many aspects I was really conflicted about.
Firstly, the plot is interesting but the plotwist was very predictable and the stroy could feel very repetitive at times. I really liked the aspect of them somehow "communicating" through dreams and if they have a look into it, the story would have been so much more interesting.
Death and the lost of a dear one is treated with respect and it impacts the characters lives. However. when Josie 2.0 discovers that his (death in his world) brother was going to move to Australia, she acted like it was the worst thing it could happen to her, and compared the situation with him being dead. She mentions how she wouldn't really see him, his family, were going to talk less...but they could still have the opportunity of talking and seeing each other, and that she didn't have in her reality. As a foreigner myself, I understand how much a change that can make, seeing your family less can affect you, but every little thing is better than that person not even existing in your reality. This aspect really bothered me because I was so mad with Josie and her attitude towards her brother moving. She already was far away from her family and that didn't matter as much, how much of a difference could make his brother being in another country? I understand this conflict was mainly so they could both change back to their realities without doubts but it was poorly done.
The story is separated in "Me" chapters and "Her" chapters, and the beginning of both very exactly the same, I had to skim through many of the first chapters cause of it. Not only that, there are way too many unnecessary descriptions about food, places etc that really didn't add anything to the plot. It can be great for making a meticulous scenario but really...I couldn't care less about the so expensive food and recipies they were eating etc. Instead of descriptions there could have been moment of maybe interior monologues so we could understand how the characters were feeling about what was happening. This leads me to the characters.
The characters...I couldn't like any of them and I tried really. They were supposed to be like 40 aprox. but they were acting like teenagers and couldn't talk to each other for the love of god. The main characters have conflicts/problems. Didn't solve a single one. They really couldn't express their feelings while having a convo. They tried to talk about it, not really achieve it, act like nothing happened the next day. So almost every relatioship conflict didn't even have a solution cause they didn't.talk.about.it.
Feeling were quite vaguely written. Ithink this is the main reason why I couldn't connect with the characters: I couldn't understand why they were acting the way they were. Characters fall in love and get together with one another but idk because one of them was just being nice?? the bare minimum?? making food or respecting the other's personal place??
Men were just awful. Every one of them (except the brother they gave him a good character development i liked him in the end), but the main love interests left much to be desired. Rob had a mask of being the nice rich guy but he had moment in which he was acting like an asshole, just thinking about himself and not really caring about Josie. Peter? Insisted and insisted and insisted about them being together even while being with his girlfriend... Like I said, seem like they both acted like they were 17 or something.
The Josie's were not much better. The first thing both highlight is their differences in body image. Josie 2.0 was really disrespectful towards the bigger body of Josie 1.0, and that made me uncomfortable. The differences in their physical aspect didn't really impact their other life but it was treated like "slim is better than thick" or at least being slim was "the better/improved option". There were many things that were different about their lives, but that one could really have been portrayed in a better way. Maybe if people around them treated them differently because of their physical aspect, so that it could show the fatphobia in rich people communities...but it had no impact on the plot. None.
I was really struggling to finish it but I didn't want to DNF it. Initially gave it almost 3 stars but going over everything I've written...I don't think I enjoyed it enough to give it that much. I understand other people could like the book, but this just wasn't my type of read.