I LOVED YOU IN ANOTHER LIFE

Two teens who are feeling stuck find in each other what they need to move on.

Shosh Bell and her sister were best friends. Her sister’s death turned Shosh’s life upside down, putting her promising acting career on hold. Evan Taft has been avoiding finishing his application for the six-month wilderness education program in Alaska that he’s been dreaming of for ages due to his fascination with northern climes. He’s worried about leaving his mom, who’s being treated for breast cancer, and even more so his E.T.-obsessed 7-year-old brother. An almost overwhelming adoration for their siblings isn’t the only thing that Evan and Shosh have in common: They both can hear music that no one else can perceive, and it seems to be pulling the two of them together. When they do finally meet, they have an immediate connection and a feeling that they’ve known each other before. Their alternating points of view are interspersed with stories from the past and future—1832 Paris, 1953 Tokyo, 2109 Oslo—showing that maybe these two souls are destined to find each other across multiple lifetimes. Poignant prose and snappy dialogue help build the sympathetic characters, adding layers that make the fabulism work, but the overabundant pop-culture references in the contemporary storyline will quickly date the book. The main characters are white in the present-day timeline.

Fully captures the intensity of first love.