Emma had the perfect life, then early one morning, a phone call changed her world forever. Now she's having nightmares that threaten to disrupt the space-time continuum—nightmares of hiding from bombs in basements, of glass shattering from nearby explosions. But these disturbing dreams, in which she inhabits the body of a young girl named Lily, seem all too real, and Emma's waking life begins to be affected by the events that transpire in this mysterious wartime landscape.
Affecting ... More about mourning than it is about the multiverse, the novel follows Emma as she stumbles past her manageable, ordered routines into light chaos ... While her decisions are unsympathetic, particularly when they’re allowed to outweigh the troubles of sidelined Lily, the authenticity of her selfish, consuming grief is an empathetic constant ... Emotive.
Exquisite and magical ... There are many concise observations on grief...and Goudarzi finds poignancy in Emma’s romantic infatuation with Kerr, but a rushed, unsatisfying ending leaves the reader with many unresolved questions. Despite the frustrating conclusion, readers will find this captivating.
Emma's prolonged grief at Spencer's death, her romantic triangle with Jacobs and Peter, her minimally acceptable boyfriend, and Lily's sweet summer romance with Nima, the son of her parents' friends, add emotional depth. A banal subplot involving Emma' boss, Charlie, her professional competition with her lunch buddy, Tina, and a sewer system at a new housing development feels disconnected from Emma's and Lily's stories. The central question of whether Emma's dreams are real sustains the intrigue to a satisfying, faster-paced conclusion ... An is-it-real-or-is-it-a-dream story with a lot to like but little to love.
