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May 20, 2016msp_pier rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
First things first - I LOVED this book. I'm a huge fan of the movie Sliding Doors (remember when Gwyneth was normal and wonderful and amazing and not all Gooped up?) and all things that are like, "what if we took this road instead of that one?" The Versions of Us is just like that, but better. It's the story of Jim and Eva. They meet by chance in Cambridge in 1958 when Eva's bike gets a flat and Jim comes over to see if he can help, which turns into drinks, which turns into love. Or maybe she doesn't get a flat and they never meet. Or maybe they meet and he helps her, which turns into drinks, which turns into them breaking up 6 weeks later. The whole book focuses on these three different (switching back and forth, which was confusing at first, but I got the hang of it!) versions and what their lives would look like from that moment on. Spanning from the fifties to the present it's a story of possibilities and the effects that our choices make on a day to day basis. It's also a story about the choices we don't make, and we all do that from time to time. The characters were beautifully written (all three versions of them), they were flawed, they were human, they were real, as were the different versions of their lives. I couldn't help but root for one particular outcome throughout the book, although the outcome I rooted for changed the more I read, but in the end I don't think any outcome was better than the other, and that's life, you guys!