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(Hardcover)
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Jillian Westfield has the perfect suburban life straight out of the upscale women's magazines that she obsessively reads. She’s got the modern-print rugs of Metropolitan Home, the elegant meals from Gourmet, the clutter-free closets out of Real Simple, and the elaborate Easter egg hunts seen in Parents. With her successful investment banker husband behind the wheel and her cherubic eighteen-month-old in the backseat, hers could be the family in the magazines’ glossy Range Rover ads.
Yet somehow all of the how-to magazine stories in the world can’t seem to fix her faltering marriage, banish the tedium of days spent changing diapers, or stop her from asking, “What if?”
Then one morning Jillian wakes up seven years in the past. Before her daughter was born. Before she married Henry. Suddenly she’s back in her post–grad school Ikea-furnished Manhattan apartment. She’s back in her fast-paced job with the advertising agency. And she’s still with Jackson, the ex-boyfriend and star of her what-if fantasies.
Armed with twenty-twenty hindsight, she’s free to choose all over again. She can use the zippy ad campaigns from her future to wow the clients and bosses in her present. She can reconnect with the mother who abandoned her so many years before. She can fix the fights at every juncture that doomed her relationship with Jackson. Or can she?
With each new choice setting off a trajectory of unforeseen consequences, Jillian soon realizes that getting to happily ever after is more complicated than changing the lines in her part of the script. Happiness, it turns out,isn’t an either-or proposition. As she closes in on all the things she thought she wanted, Jillian must confront the greatest what-if of all: What if the problem was never Henry or Jackson, but her?
Sharp, funny, and heartwarming, Time of My Life will appeal to anyone who has ever wanted to redo the past and will leave readers pondering, “Do we get the reality we deserve?”
In her latest novel, Scotch tackles an oft-asked question-what if I had held on to the one that got away?-with an engaging, fast-moving, high-concept drama. Endearing Jillian Westfield seems to have it all: a loving lawyer husband, a healthy infant daughter, and a lovely home in Westchester County, N.Y. But cleaning spit-up and dealing with her husband's long office hours have begun to wear on Jill, and it hardly helps that she's just learned that her post-college boyfriend, Jackson, is getting married. The day after a deep, chi-clearing massage, Jill wakes up and finds herself seven years in the past, giving her the chance to revisit her life with Jack in Manhattan, when she worked as an advertising executive. Hindsight, of course, is anything but 20/20, and Jill's new choices hold unforeseen consequences for herself and those she loves. As Jill, through trial and error, rethinks her biggest decisions-such as her choice not to reconcile with her estranged mother-Scotch keeps one dexterous step ahead of page-flipping readers eager to guess the outcome. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. More Reviews and RecommendationsALLISON WINN SCOTCH is the author of the novel The Department of Lost and Found. She is also a magazine writer whose work has appeared in numerous publications, including Parents, Glamour, Redbook, and Shape. She lives in New York with her husband and two children.
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May 20, 2009: This book was well written and thought out with all the details covered completely. The main character Jillian Westfield dreams of what if's of her past life and relationship. She is able to wake up 10 years in the past and relive her life, relive her relationships with her boyfriend and friends as well as mold her "dream job" into something she knows she can achieve. However, there is always the downside to creating your own future. Including not marrying the right man, getting promoted too soon when you don't want it and predicting outcomes of friendships before they happen.
Time of my Life is a great book club read. The story line is light and the characters are remarkably funny and believable. It will make you start wondering, what if.....Reader Rating:
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March 12, 2009: I decided to read this book since it got such good reviews from this site and other book sites even though I'm not much of a time travel reader. I gave up after a few chapters since I didn't think there was much good in reading much more of this boring book. I really didn't care how the book ended and if she met her husband all over again in the near future.