In “All the Other Me,” author Jody Holford captures that question that many of us have pondered: are there other universes in which we live different lives because we’ve made different decisions? What if I hadn’t done that, we might wonder. How would my life have been different? In this novel, we meet Isabelle Duprees, the main character. She is an extremely successful businesswoman, one of the top one-percenters. She receives accolades, invitations to galas, the best tables at restaurants. But as extremely successful and capable as she is in business and her professional life, her personal life is anything but successful.
Isabelle holds people at arm’s length and doesn’t really trust anyone. We come to understand the reasons she doesn’t want anything to do with her family, but she supports them and sends them money so they want for nothing. She just refuses to see them or talk to them. Slowly, over the course of the novel, Holford shares Isabelle’s past, including her childhood and the events surrounding her father’s death when Isabelle was only eight.
When her sister blindsides her after an event in which she’s received yet another award, Isabelle lets her sister into her penthouse condo and reluctantly agrees that she can spend the night. We see them trade barbs, but we don’t quite know what in the past has made their relationship so frigid. When Elaina, her sister, accuses her of staying up nights “counting your money and googling yourself to see if you’re still number one at everything,” Isabelle counters that she’s never googled herself.
Later that night, after they both have consumed too much alcohol, Isabelle does google herself to see what there is. She knows that she’s kept what little personal life she has completely private, so she’s expecting information about her business success, her awards, her accomplishments. What she sees shocks her. The only result on the Google search is someone with Isabelle’s name, but it’s not Isabelle. Isabelle Carolyn Duprees, with her same birth place and birthday, is a woman who lives in Pennsylvania (not New York) and manages a bookstore. That woman’s Facebook page shows that in addition to sharing Isabelle’s name and birthdate, she also has Isabelle’s face.
Obviously there’s some kind of crazy magic going on, and Isabelle and Elaina decide to visit Poppy, Pennsylvania to see what this other Isabelle is like. Now the novel becomes a journey story, as the sisters embark on an adventure that will force them to reconsider their childhood, their shared memories, and the mistakes that have led them to the estrangement that obviously weighs heavily on each of them. They visit the alternate Isabelle, who is a version of what the “real” Isabelle might have been had the bus she was taking to get to college broken down in that small town. After learning about that Isabelle’s happy life, one in which she isn’t worried about financial success but has more personal and aspirational goals, Isabelle does a new search, hoping reality will have returned and the real Isabelle will appear. But that is not to be; a new alternate Isabelle appears in the Google search engine results.
The next Isabelle is in Virginia Beach, and the sisters head there together to see what this version of Isabelle has to offer. Again, it’s a version of Isabelle had she made a different choice during her career. No spoilers here, but after visiting with this second iteration, they find that the third and last version is back in Ashland, Tennessee, Isabelle’s hometown, running a mansion where events like weddings and other parties take place.
In addition to the whole eeriness of visiting alternative versions of oneself, no one in the towns can see that Isabelle is the clone of the Isabelle they are visiting. Even the alternate Isabelles don’t recognize that they could be looking in a mirror — they are seeing someone else. But Holford’s writing is such that we accept that, just as we accept the “magic” of the google searches and the magic of the sisters visiting alternate realities. Along the way, Isabelle learns much about herself, remembers much about her past, and realizes that the way she’s been living—holding off friends and lovers and allowing no one to get close to her for fear that they would disappoint her—is not a way to be fulfilled and happy.
The ultimate lesson that Holford wants us to understand is that living and loving is messy. None of us is perfect, and we all make mistakes. We are all only human, but part of being human is to love others and accept others in spite of their imperfections. The novel is touching and thoughtful, and it’s written with beautiful expressions of how we must live in the present because we can’t plan out every iteration of what might happen in the future. One Isabelle explains that she loves her life because she is doing what she loves to do, she has a man who loves her “no matter where I work or how much money I make,” and she says, “I don’t know where I’ll be in five years or ten. And I don’t care. The only thing anyone ever has is right this minute. Why would I waste it chasing after maybes?”
There’s another lovely bit of writing as Isabelle is talking to Jonathan, the man she’s held at arm’s length even though he wants to take their relationship to a much deeper level. They are talking about forgiveness and family, and how hard it can be. He tells Isabelle, “When something breaks, you can put it back together, if you’re lucky, but it’ll never be the same. Sometimes, the cracks show, sometimes it just isn’t strong enough to hold, and sometimes, it’s so seamless, you have to be looking for it to find the spot where it broke. If you press too hard on that point, it could fall apart again.” It’s realizing that just because you forgive and move forward, that doesn’t mean there was no damage. We all have regrets, but we can’t live our lives worrying about them. We need to move forward, to find our happiness, and to live for the moment.
The novel is a complete fantasy, and it’s a fantasy we want to believe in. Who wouldn’t want a chance to see how our lives would have been had we made different choices? This is a book that could make readers reflect on their own lives and what alternative lives each of us might be living in an alternate universe. If only we could have a magical google search engine to help us discover that! Holford’s engaging narrative, innovative plot, and thoughtful narrative reel us in and keep us reading as we journey with Isabelle on her quest to understand her past and find her happy ever after. And along the way, we just might reflect on our own lives and how forgiveness, reflection, and understanding might help us move forward.
This review was first posed on Bookreporter.com.