A Day Like This by Kelley McNeil

 

Summary (from the publisher): What if everything you’ve ever loved, ever known, ever believed to be true...just disappeared?

Annie Beyers has everything - a beautiful house, a loving husband, and an adorable daughter. It’s a day like any other when she takes Hannah to the pediatrician...until she wakes hours later from a car accident. When she asks for her daughter, confused doctors tell Annie that Hannah never existed. In fact, nothing after waking from the crash is the same as Annie remembers. Five happy years of her life apparently never happened.

Annie’s marriage is coming to an end. Now a successful artist living in Manhattan, she’s no longer home in their beloved upstate farmhouse. Her long-estranged sister is more like a best friend, and her recently deceased dog is alive and well. With each passing day, Annie’s remembered past and unfamiliar present begin to blur. Haunted by visions of Hannah, and with knowledge of things she can’t explain, Annie wonders...is everyone lying to her?

The search for answers leads Annie down an illuminating path far from home, to reconcile the memories with reality and to discover the truth about the life she’s living.

Review: Annie Beyers lives in her beautiful dream home, a farmhouse in upstate New York, with her loving husband and young daughter Hannah. She has a normal day at home with her daughter until she leaves to take Hannah to the pediatrician. Hours later, she wakes up from a car crash, desperate to know if her daughter is ok. She is horrified to be told by everyone that there is no Hannah. She never existed. In fact, the past five years of her life as Hannah remembered it never happened. In the new reality she awakens to, she is a successful artist in Manhattan, her estranged sister is apparently now her best friend, and her beloved dog is still alive and well. But her marriage is crumbling and, even more crushing, she has no children and never did.

Annie is crushed by grief for her daughter. Did the car crash cause false memories? Is she slipping into mental delusions like her late mother? Or is everyone lying to her? In her search for answers and to find peace in her new reality, Annie must confront what and who is most important to her and how to reconcile the two paths of her life she has been privy to viewing. 

This was an interesting take on alternate realities. Annie has a unique opportunity to view an alternate path her life could have taken. And she has an opportunity to make choices to sway her future towards the best version of her life that she can make it. This is the second book by McNeil I have read. She is a gifted writer that really brings her characters to life. In this book, Annie's anguish over her lost daughter is keenly felt by the reader. The author does a great job of setting the scene and depicting Annie as a loving mother so when Hannah is suddenly gone, the reader feels the full impact on Annie as a character. 

However, I wasn't as big a fan of the way this alternate reality story was concluded. Without giving away any spoilers, Annie ends up going on a wild goose chase for answers, talking to paranormal experts and even flying to London to talk to someone who has written an article on one possible explanation for what she has experienced. It all felt a bit far-fetched. Although I liked the final resolution for Annie and her family, the explanation was difficult to believe. 

Stars: 3

Related Title: 

• Mayluna by Kelley McNeil