To the Hanes and Reid families, thank you. To Rose and Warren, Sally and Bernie, Niko and Zach: When I tell my friends how much I love my in-laws, I’m pretty sure they all roll their eyes at me as if I’m a student reminding the teacher that she forgot to assign homework—but I’ll keep saying it until I’m blue in the face. I’m lucky to have married into such a wonderful family. I love you all.
To the Jenkins and Morris families, thank you. To my mother, Mindy, and my brother, Jake, I love you. I am so fortunate to have you in my corner. Thank you for always believing in me and for always being game to talk through ideas about life and humanity.
To my grandmother, Linda, words will never express what you mean to me. I feel humbled just to have known you, let alone to have been so lucky as to be your granddaughter. Thank you for every single moment of our time together. I am who I am because I have grown up trying to make you proud. Consider this my solemn promise to remember to stop and smell the roses.
And finally, to Alex Reid: This book isn’t about us. But there’s one line that I wrote just for you. “I know there may be universes out there where I made different choices and they led me somewhere else, led me to someone else. And my heart breaks for every single version of me that didn’t end up with you.”
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MAYBE IN
ANOTHER
LIFE
TAYLOR JENKINS REID
A Readers Club Guide
At the age of twenty-nine, Hannah Martin still has no idea what she wants to do with her life. She has lived in six different cities and held countless meaningless jobs since college, but on the heels of a disastrous breakup, she has finally returned to her hometown of Los Angeles. To celebrate her first night back, her best friend, Gabby, takes Hannah out to a bar—where she meets up with her high school boyfriend, Ethan.
It’s just past midnight when Gabby asks Hannah if she’s ready to go. Ethan quickly offers to give her a ride later if she wants to stay.
Hannah hesitates.
What happens if she leaves with Gabby?
What happens if she leaves with Ethan?
In concurrent storylines, Hannah lives out the effects of each decision. Quickly, these parallel universes develop into surprisingly different stories with far-reaching consequences for Hannah and the people around her, raising questions including: Is anything meant to be? How much in our life is determined by chance? And perhaps most compellingly: Is there such a thing as a soul mate?
Hannah believes there is. And, in both worlds, she believes she’s found him.
QUESTIONS AND TOPICS OF DISCUSSION
1. Hannah opens the novel needing to find a sense of home, and a renewed, stronger sense of self. Does she find both of these things by the novel’s conclusion? Are they different in each ending, or more or less the same?
2. Hannah has a complicated and somewhat distant relationship with her family after they move to London. Hannah’s dad admits, “Your mother and I realized we had made a huge mistake not bringing you with us. We never should have let you stay in Los Angeles. Never should have left you”. What do you think about this statement? What does Hannah’s reaction to this confession indicate to you?
3. Why do you think Gabby makes such an effort to spell out her feminism?
4. There are some choices that Hannah faces in both of her stories. Can you identify these? Discuss whether her ultimate decisions differ or are the same in each plot thread. What is their significance?
5. Turn to p. 194 and reread the conversation Hannah has with Ethan from her hospital bed. What do you make of her statement, “Whatever would have happened wasn’t supposed to happen”? Do you agree with Hannah that believing we’re all destined for something makes it easier to bear the harder moments?
6. Hannah says, “I’m starting to think maybe you just pick a place and stay there. You pick a career and do it. You pick a person and commit to him”. Is this idea—that sometimes, you just have to make a decision and stick with it—mutually exclusive with any notion of fate or destiny?
7. Reread Gabby and Hannah’s conversation about soul mates (pages 208–210). Do you agree with Hannah when she says that sometimes you can just tell about a person? Have you ever had a person about whom you felt you could just tell?
8. While on the surface, the novel may seem to focus on which man Hannah will end up with, there are several types of love explored in Maybe in Another Life. Discuss these as a group. Which of the many relationships depicted was your favorite? How did they change and grow in each storyline?
9. Mark tries to defend his decision to leave Gabby by saying, “I didn’t mean for it to happen. But when you have that kind of connection with someone, nothing can stand in its way”. What do you think about this? Do you agree with Hannah’s belief that “your actions in love are not an exception to who you are. They are, in fact, the very definition of who you are”? How does this jibe with the idea that sometimes you can just tell someone is right for you?
10. Did you believe in fate when you started the novel? Did the novel change, challenge, or uphold your opinion?
11. Certainly some of the characters, including Hannah at times, believe in fate. Do you think the book itself suggests that fate exists? What about soul mates?
12. Did you find yourself rooting for one ending versus the other? Do you have an opinion on whether Hannah should have ended up with Henry or with Ethan? If you were Hannah, which ending would you have wanted for yourself?
13. Think about the statement that Jesse makes at the end of the novel: “Everything that is possible happens”. If that’s true, what do other versions of your life look like?
ENHANCE YOUR BOOK CLUB
1. Hannah has a special love for cinnamon rolls. In honor of her, make (or buy from your favorite bakery) some cinnamon rolls for your book club.
2. The 1998 movie Sliding Doors (starring Gwyneth Paltrow) takes a similar premise as Maybe in Another Life, and examines how one woman’s life differs based on whether or not she catches a train. Watch the film as a group, and discuss how its portrayal of two possible outcomes for one woman’s life differs from Hannah’s story. Are the two projects making the same point or contrasting ones?
3. Taylor Jenkins Reid is the author of two other novels, Forever, Interrupted and After I Do. Pick one to read as a group and compare and contrast it with Maybe in Another Life. What do Reid’s earlier books have to say about fate and soul mates?
MILA SHAH
Taylor Jenkins Reid is the author of Forever, Interrupted and After I Do. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Alex, and her dog, Rabbit. You can follow her on Twitter at @TJenkinsReid.
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Washington Square Press
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onandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Cover Design by Melissa Faustine Chang
Cover Art by Getty Images (Woman’s body © Compassionate Eye Foundation; Hair © Noviembre Anita Vela; Retro Palms © Denise Taylor; Frame © Matthias Clamer)
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Washington Square Press Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Washington Square Press trade paperback edition July 2015
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Reid, Taylor Jenkins.
Maybe in another life : a novel / Taylor Jenkins Reid. —First Washington Square Press trade paperback edition.
pages ; cm
1. Chick lit. I. Title.
PS3618.E5478M39 2015
813'.6—dc23
2014039873
ISBN 978-1-4767-7688-0
ISBN 978-1-4767-7689-7 (ebook)
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7: Three Days Later
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44: Three Weeks Later
Chapter 45: Three Months Later
Chapter 46: Three Years Later
Chapter 47
Acknowledgments
Readers group guide
Questions and Topics of Discussion
Enhance your Book Club
About Taylor Jenkins Reid
Maybe in Another Life Page 28