No Two Persons

 

No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister

Fiction

2023 St. Martin's Press

Finished on May 21, 2023

Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

One book. Nine readers. Ten changed lives. New York Times bestselling author Erica Bauermeister’s No Two Persons is “a gloriously original celebration of fiction, and the ways it deepens our lives.”

That was the beauty of books, wasn’t it? They took you places you didn’t know you needed to go…

Alice has always wanted to be a writer. Her talent is innate, but her stories remain safe and detached, until a devastating event breaks her heart open, and she creates a stunning debut novel. Her words, in turn, find their way to readers, from a teenager hiding her homelessness, to a free diver pushing himself beyond endurance, an artist furious at the world around her, a bookseller in search of love, a widower rent by grief. Each one is drawn into Alice’s novel; each one discovers something different that alters their perspective, and presents new pathways forward for their lives.

Together, their stories reveal how books can affect us in the most beautiful and unexpected of ways—and how we are all more closely connected to one another than we might think.

Well, as the title states, no two persons read the same book. One of my blogging friends raved about Erica Bauermeister's latest novel, so I quickly made a request for it at my library. I was in the middle of another book when it arrived, so I let my mom read it first and she loved it. I enjoyed the novel and the premise of nine individuals encountering the same book, but it didn't live up to my expectations. While not a collection of short stories, the focus of each chapter is devoted to one of the main characters (with a hint of overlap between characters), and the impact of Alice's novel on their lives. 

I enjoyed the references to reading (do authors know how much these appeal to booklovers and that they'll probably quote them in their reviews?) and especially those mentioned by one of the characters who is a bookseller. There are so many aspects that I loved about working in a bookstore. One of my favorite jobs was spending time in Receiving where we unpacked and sorted all the incoming merchandise. The best day was always Tuesday (Laydown/Strict-on-Sale day) when we got to see all the new releases. I set displays with those new books and it always felt like Christmas.

If the back room was supposed to be a punishment, it never worked that way. In all the steps needed to take a story from writer to reader, the unpacking of a box in a bookstore was a ridiculously small one, and yet to Kit it always felt like being at a party where the books were the guests of honor. He liked to take each one from the box, raising it slightly in the air.

May I present the honorable Great Gatsby/Snow Child/Olive Kitteridge... 

On Remarkable Books:

It was something she would tell her son later, when he was learning to read himself--how your first read of an extraordinary book is something you can only experience once. The most fitting analogy might be losing one's virginity with the perfect partner--but that wasn't a comparison she was going to use with a four-year-old.

"It's like eating the best ice-cream cone of your life on a hot day," she told him. "You want to eat it fast, but have it never end." 

On Audiobook Narration:

A narrator has to be able to inhabit a myriad of ages and accents, both genders and all their various permutations, without ever relying on the visual of a crooked eyebrow, the mood enhancement of a musical score. And, unlike screenplays, where stage directions were generally clear and directions stood at the ready, a book required the narrator to hunt for clues.

I enjoyed No Two Persons, but it was a lighter read than I'd anticipated. I read the print edition, and I'll bet the audio is great with its full cast of narrators (Barrie Kreinik, Braden Wright, Carol Jacobanis, Cassandra Campbell, Gabra Zackman, George Newbern, Jesse Vilinsky, Max Meyers, Rachel L. Jacobs, and Stephen Graybill).