Me gustó el libro? Sí 
Lo disfruté? Sí 
Pero por alguna razón se sintió vacío, este es un libro de autoayuda, y entiendo porque a mucha gente no le gustó, sin embargo, ese es el propósito del libro, el dar una perspectiva optimista sobre la vida, el cómo nosotros decidimos sobre nuestro destino y el lugar en el que estamos, sin embargo, hay que tener en cuenta que la depresión es un tema MUY COMPLEJO, las personas no experimentan el mismo grado de depresión y estoy segura que sí hay personas que han llegado a la misma conclusión que Nora. 

Sí me parecieron algunas partes un poco lentas y aburridas, pero en general me gustó, me sentí un poco identificada con Norma, yo también perdí a una de mis gatita y sentí que el mundo se me iba de las manos, me siento en una posición en la que no sé qué hago con mi vida y que estoy estancada, y por supuesto que me gustaría saber cómo son las vidas de mis otros yo, pero eso sólo quedaría en mi imaginación. 

Sí te gusta este hype por los multiversos y quieres una historia optimista sobre la vida y la muerte, tal vez te guste este libro. 

Lovely book on healing from depression 

This is a really interesting concept, and I think it does a good job being honest that life is hard, and no matter what choices you make, it will be hard in different ways. But you have to choose where to find your joy (and also get the mental health help that you need!). I liked this book for an easy read because it was a tad formulaic.

This book surprised me in the emotional journey it took me through. Considering how serious the book started (and frankly how depressingly), I would not have expected how much I would have liked it. I think I am at a point in my life where I don’t know what I want, or what the future holds, and I spend so much of my life living in my head thinking about all the what if’s instead of actually going out there and making changes to pursue any of the possible paths. And so reading this book feels like it came at a really crucial point in my life and I know for a fact it’s going to stay with me for a really long time. Don’t go into this if you are in a bad mental way as it can be quite heavy, but it’s hopeful too as weird as that sounds, and I resonated a lot with it. A definite recommend if you are in the right headspace with which to read it. 

I read this book as part of a reading challenge that included a prompt for reading a book about a library or set in a library.  I'm not sure I would have picked it up otherwise.   I strongly suspected how it would end even before I opened it

(the life she had was the best life for her and/or she had a great effect on other people a la It's a Wonderful Life)

and I was not wrong.  

I spent most of the book being strongly reminded of one of the better SNL skits in recent years where host Adam Sandler plays a tour guide (I believe in Italy) and makes the point that when you go on vacation you're still you.   If you were lonely and depressed at home, you'll still bring your loneliness and depression when you're in vacation.  You won't magically turn into a better, happier version of yourself just because you're temporarily somewhere else and it's not fair to give him a poor rating because your vacation didn't fix whatever was going wrong in your life.

Same deal.   The way this worked wasn't really like Nora was watching other versions of her life, instead she was actually living it but she was still the same person as in her root life.   So she didn't know facts or people the new version of her life that she should have if she'd actually been living that life, which I would think would make it frustrating and scary and leads to all kinds of imposter syndrome and not really be a good indication of what it was like to live that life.   Maybe there's a life where I'm an extreme extrovert instead of being an introvert and maybe that me is very happy being an extreme extrovert.  But if you just put introverted me into that life I would be miserable.   To say nothing of what it would be like to be in a long term relationship with someone you've never met and can't explain why you may have gone to bed knowing the person you were sleeping next to but now that person is a complete stranger.   That sounds like a recipe for adding more trauma. 

Similarly, if you had the life experience to be confident about something, whether that's public speaking or signing in front of a crowd or something else, you can't have someone without that formative experience(s) step in and know what it's like to really live that life because of course root Nora isn't comfortable with those things. 

I was also reminded of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan's point that our pain makes us who we are.  So actually getting rid of all your regrets would also make you a different person.   

There were some psychological things that I found myself resenting.  Nora's depression is described as situational, but since at least in the beginning all the lives she visited were ones where she was depressed and sometimes tried to commit suicide, I don't know if she was misdiagnosed but it didn't seem very situational. 

And she gives up some of her regrets pretty easily.   My immediate thought about Volts having a heart condition was okay, so why isn't her next question what if I had taken Volts to the vet sooner or more often?   He may have had one of his bests lives with her, but was there more she could have done?  And maybe the answer was no, it wasn't a condition that could have been treated and if she'd known ahead of time the condition existed she would have spent her time within him being more worried that he would die and not just enjoying the time they had.   I realize actually having the reader go through various permutations of a theme to get Nora to that point probably wouldn't be interesting for a the reader but it seems like there might be a way to quickly summarize various attempts.

I also didn't really buy her decision she wanted to live after all after the encounter with the polar bear.   I understand not wanting to feel pain at death but that's not the same as wanting to live.  It's also true that many people who attempt suicide attempt it multiple times before they succeed.  So maybe it was part of that cycle.  But she didn't actually feel curiosity about all her other lives until several lives later.

Anyway.  I know you can change the life you're living and (maybe) make it better is a much more inspirational message than yep, turns out you were just living the wrong life, here, step into this other one or yes, you really did make a decision or decisions in your life that made things worse for yourself and can't be fixed, sucks to be you.

And it's also true that no life is perfect without its ups and downs.

The chapters are short, sometimes no more than a paragraph or even a single sentence, which I found distracting although I understand it also makes it read faster with a sense of urgency. 

This isn't a bad book, it just wasn't the one for me and that's okay.

This was super fun -

I really liked the quantum physics/alternate universe piece of it, it made my mind happy to think about.

I was kept busy trying to guess what was going to happen, and even though I DID kind of know, I mostly still enjoyed the journey (getting to the final moments did drag on a bit for me).

I can see why people like this, but I found the main character frustrating and unlikeable, all the way to the end of the book. 

Fairly sure it's just not meant for me as the person who has had to clean up after a loved ones attempted suicide.