Someone Else's Life: Review

Title: Someone Else's Life

Author: Katie Dale

Release Date: February 2012

Published By: Simon & Schuster

Pages: 485

Goodreads Rating: 3.97 stars

Review: When Rosie's mother, Trudie, passes away due to Huntington's disease, and her pain is only intensified by the knowledge that she has a 50% chance of inheriting the disease herself. But when she tells her mother's friend about her plans to get tested, Aunt Sarah reveals that Trudie was not actually her mother. Shocked and devastated, she tries to track down her mother by hitching along on her ex-boyfriend's gap year, and what she discovers leaves her with an agonizing decision to make - one that will change her life.

I originally picked this book up because the summary sounded enticing. After all, I enjoy "issues" books - novels that explore certain deep issues such as family death, illness, abuse, etc. - and there's nothing I like more than a good, emotional read. Unfortunately, I found SOMEONE ELSE'S LIFE to be ultimately disappointing and not really what I expected it to be. It was difficult to relate to the characters and so I had trouble experiencing much sympathy or emotion.

Although the summary doesn't make this obvious, the novel is told in alternating points of view from Rosie and another girl, Holly. It was not the fact that there were different POVs that bothered me, but rather the POVs themselves. I tried to relate to Holly, but she was just so selfish and entitled that I couldn't help but hate her. All she thought about was herself with no respect for Rosie's recent tragedy, and I wanted to slap some sense into her over and over.

Rosie herself wasn't exactly a cakewalk either, although she was better than Holly. I disliked that she was so dense when it came to her on-again, off-again ex-boyfriend Andy, and she could have used a good dose of sense herself, like Holly. Still, her parts were more tolerable than Holly's, and I didn't actively dislike her.

SOMEONE ELSE'S LIFE opened with an interesting premise, but the characters were just impossible to relate to. Holly bothered me a good deal more than Rosie, and her occasional stupidity drove me insane throughout the novel. I'd still look into future novels by the author because the writing itself was nice; it was just the characters that annoyed me.