This book really touched my heart and felt close to home, maybe because I am a woman around her age with two teenage children.  I saw parts of myself in her and felt connected to her mourning her lost dreams as well as feeling it was all worth it as she looked at her children.  It captures the juxtaposition of both the loss and the joy of middle age. Loved it even though I felt a bit that the story line of the antifa clouded the picture unnecessarily.

You Again by Debra Jo Immergut is without a doubt one of the most bizarre novels I have ever read but I could not stop reading it. Until the very end I would have said it was a psychological thriller but the last few pages made me think more Twilight Zone than Gone Girl.

Abigail is a 46 year old working mom.  A long time ago she was considered the future of painting and even had a gallery showing in SoHo, NY. But marriage, motherhood, bills and a mortgage have her working as an artistic director for a pharmaceutical company.

Then on a rainy day in NY she sees her. She is just as she remembers. The hair, the eyes and that look of invincibility that only the young possess. There is the younger Abigail before responsibilities of life. How can that be possible? Is she losing her mind? Has she walked through some time warp? Is this just a doppelganger?

As Abigail becomes obssessed with this younger version of herself we see her marriage falter, an affair with a police detective, a son become involved with violent protests, and her need to warn this young girl not to make the mistakes she did; especially that fateful night with her old boyfriend Eli.

Interspersed between chapters are correspondence between doctors and scientists about Abigail a year after she first sees herself. These were not helpful in understanding what was happening until the end but even then I still have questions.

Maybe that's the point of the story. We don't always have all the answers but we need to still keep living. Trauma has real effects on our mind and body and secrets never stay buried forever.

I want to say more but I don't want to giveaway the surprises, the OMG moments or the "wait what just happened" events. The author is brilliant at writing unique descriptive scenes that made me realize why I review books instead of writing them.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

This one was just not for me. The stream of conscience writing was difficult to sort through. The storyline, seeing your younger self, was fascinating, but the disjointed family life was written in a flowery unreal way. With the oddly interjected discussion between doctors and emails between colleagues, it was just a jumbled mess of stuff I wasn't terrible drawn in to or cared about. When the affairs were revealed, I was just pretty well done with the book but still had 50% to go. I wish I'd loved it more.

In my personal rating system, no book earns five stars unless I'm *certain* that I will want to read it again. For You Again, make that NEED to read it again. The language is beautiful -- not showy, but with a casual depth. The premise is, well, "unique" seems too bland a word to convey its originality.

Abigail is a middle-aged wife and mother, who was an extravagantly gifted artist in her youth. She now designs marketing materials for a pharmaceutical company. These days, by way of affirmation, what she gets is a throwaway compliment from a coworker: "Color is your competency, Abby."

Early on in the story, Abigail is visited by -- what? hallucinations? apparitions? She sees a walking, talking version of herself from 20 years earlier, a period she can only dimly recall. And why is that?

Some other reviewers grumbled about the intrusion into the narrative of a psychiatrist's notes and snippets of an ongoing email conversation between a detective and a physicist. I loved these bits -- for me, they served as highway markers for what might come next, for the questions I should be asking myself along the road.

Everything was so informed, so intelligent: from the theory and production of art to the flirtations with the time-space continuum.

As to why I need to read this book again, I want to suss out the lingering mystery of You Again, to seek out clues I may have missed. What happened to Abigail, was it physical or metaphysical?

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins for an advance readers copy.

It is not often I DNF a book. But life is simply too short for reading to feel like a chore. I originally was curious about this book because it seemed like an exciting concept, but it fell short for me. I cannot speak to the entire plot, but from what I read, I was uninterested and not invested in the characters. While I can certainly appreciate Debra Jo Immergut's writing, I was regrettably not the right audience for this book. Thank you to #NetGalley, Ecco, and Debra Jo Immergut for this advanced e-copy of #YouAgain.

This book took me out. I went into this thinking this would be a light read of a woman in flux, seeing her younger self and realizing that life is fine as it is. What I got is a extremely high concept, suspenseful and scientifically confusing wonderful book.

Abby is the head of visual design at a pharma company - far from her dreams of being an artist. Then, she sees a skinny pair of legs in silver platforms and a pink coat and everything changes - because those legs are hers, from 20+ years prior.

What follows is a story of a woman searching for something, herself, happiness, the truth. This is an exploration in how brains work, how memories stay with us forever and how the more things change, the more they stay the same.

This is a terribly written review of a wonderful book. There are not enough words to talk about how wonderful and surprising this book from Debra Jo Immergut.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I cannot continue reading this book.  It is difficult to follow the characters and the sequences sent by the author.  I cannot determine if the writer is talking about real or imagined images and people.  I would not be able to recommend or reject it.

You Again is the story of Abigail Willard a forty-six year old art director at a pharmaceutical company. One night on her way home from work she sees a young woman who she recognizes as herself at age twenty-two. As  the story continues Abigail begins to question the stable life she and her husband, Dennis have built with their two teenage sons Pete and Benjamin. Both Abigail and Dennis have given up promising careers as artists to raise their family.  Abigail continues to encounter her younger self, at first by accident and later by design. Meanwwhile her son Peter enters a rebellious stage  remniscent of her own wilder youth.  The story brings into question whether time past, time present and time future all exist at the same time but are not recognize by us because of the limitations of our own minds.The story becomes more and more compelling  as Immergut weaves the plotlines and characters together leading to an intriguing conclusion.

What would you do if you encountered your younger self, at age 22, on a rainy night in NYC?  This is what happens to Abigail Willard.  She’s 46 when she sees her former self, wearing a raspberry colored coat and silver platform shoes, getting into the back of a cab.  Abby used to be an artist, a free spirit, but she got married to a fellow artist, had two kids and gave up her dream.  Now she’s a working mom of two boys and she works for a pharmaceutical company.  Abby stopped painting long ago.
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So I began to wonder about Abby.  Is this some kind of time travel story?  Sci-fi?  Is she hallucinating?  Is she dreaming?  As the weeks go by in Abby’s life, she sees her younger self more and more.  Abby is convinced this is part of a deeper mystery in her life that has its roots in her past.
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Well, I will say this is well-written, literary fiction.  Book club material.  It’s thought-provoking.  Abby is a flawed character who narrates the story .The NYC setting is also a character in this book because the city is so important to Abby.  The story gets a bit bogged down and confusing as the book goes on which was unfortunate because I did enjoy the uniqueness of the story.

Abby Willard, 46, wife, mother of 2 teenage boys, graphic designer, finds herself in a work a day existence far from her younger days as an artist whose work was shown in galleries.

On her way home from work one rainy evening, her eyes are drawn to the cab window, where she sees a girl that looks just like she did in her 20’s. She gets out of the cab to get a better look and so begins this story.

Debra Jo Immergut does a great job alluding to the past and showing it’s intersect with the current day.  I also appreciate how she highlights the struggles of identity, parenthood, and marriage.  I loved the discussion of art, I could envision her using the ashes to add to her paint.  Abby’s connection to One the fact that she carried a paint chip around with her really made her feel human.

The intersecting and overlapping layers of stories were interesting but didn’t quite resonate with me.  I can see how Abby and A were both struggling to find happiness and validation both as artists and as people.   I felt that there were too many extraneous characters that distracted from the thread of the story.  I had a hard time sympathizing with any of the characters.  

A midlife crisis, wrapped in a TBI, wrapped in….. prescience?   Though well written, this just wasn’t the right book for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Interesting but confusing look into the mind of Abby, an artist and mother who is having memory troubles and potentially identity-related troubles, and hallucinations of seeing her former self on the streets. I thought the author did a nice job conveying her mental state and how it began to slip and she became confused and withdrawn at times. However, the interspersing of the neurologist's notes at different time frames was confusing and didn't really work for me. The neurologist and her team never felt that interesting because they were given so little time and so little background. And they never found anything terribly interesting so I think it should have been included differently somehow.

YOU AGAIN by Debra Jo Immergut is a novel about Abigail who encounters her younger self. It’s a mystery as to whether these encounters are real or imaginary. The mystery elements throughout the book definitely kept me reading and I finished this book in one day! I liked the different points of view and the constant back and forth in the timeline was intriguing but I found the ending anticlimactic.

Debra Jo Immergut was nominated for an Edgar Award last year, which was what encouraged me to read this book. It was very interesting, as it jumped around a bit. These type of books, with the date of the day at the beginning of a section, are hard to read on the Kindle, as it is hard to remember what timeline you are in. That being said, this was enjoyable, trying to figure out what was going on. Will need to find her previous novel, The Captives.

This is such a unique and quirky little book. And a tough one to review due to the unique plot! First of all, the writing throughout is gorgeous, introspective and intense. It touches on so many deep and interesting ideas in a completely unique way. The basic plot of the book is that 46-year-old Abby has started seeing her younger 23-year old self around town, in some kind of wormhole to the past. She sees her younger self in her old favorite places, with an equally young version of her former lover.

The best parts of this book were unquestionably when Abby confronts her younger self. I loved these without exception and as someone who also lived in New York at that young age, I saw so much of myself in both the younger Abby of before and the older married one of today. This is such a genius idea of the book and these parts were really well done and lovely. I also really liked the parts where she examined her marriage.

The structure of the book was non-linear (which I realize is by design) but at times I found it difficult to navigate. It is perhaps a little ironic that at times this book seemed to be having an identity crisis about which version of itself it wanted to be - a thriller? A family drama? With many characters, some seemingly unrelated at first, popping in and out, and with two versions of the protagonist it could sometimes be confusing and hard to keep the timelines straight. Some of the subplots worked better than others. I liked the subplots relating to her present-day marriage, not so much the subplot with her son’s involvement in Antifa. The book is also broken up with doctor’s notes which, while an interesting idea, interrupted the flow for me. A lot of these characters are not fully explained until the end, where they are explained very well. But it still makes for a somewhat disjointed reading experience up to that point (which, you realize at the end, is fully intentional and has a reason).

Much of the confusion comes together at the ending, which is wonderful. I think upon a second read, knowing the ending, this book will be even better. Knowing the ending I marvel a bit at the different writing styles in different places vs. the end, and the reason that is ultimately revealed for that.

Overall this was a totally unique, if at times confusing, reading experience with so many interesting things to say about time, memories, love and the mind. If you can get through some of the disjointed parts you will be rewarded with a really neat ending that explains it. This book is fully quirky and definitely not for everyone and at times I was utterly confused but ultimately I found it to be a really unique and interesting reading experience. Talented author who does many neat things with language in this book.

Thanks to NetGalley, Harper Collins and Debra Jo Immergut for the ARC of this interesting book.

Have you ever read a book and when you were done sat there and wondered what the hell did I just read? Well folks that was me and this book! 
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It was supposed to be a thriller about a woman that sees her former self as she is going about daily life. Like 40 year old her ran into 20 year old her on the street. The adult her is married with kids and works in marketing for a pharmaceutical company creating art for advertising. In her former life she was an artist and self-described mess. She has an affair with the officer that arrests her teen son for being involved in some ANTIFA protests. Her husband has an affair with another artist their both friends with after losing his job for charging expensive stereo equipment to his company credit card. 
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All in all, I finished this one and felt confused. There were some emails and therapy notes spaced throughout the book, as well as discussions about a possible brain tumor situation or damage from previous trauma. Possibly this is why she was hallucinating her younger self. 
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All in all I hated it, felt confused and like maybe I wasn’t intelligent enough to get this book. 
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The writing though disjointed topic wise did seem to flow well but otherwise I didn’t connect with the characters or the book. 
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Thank you @netgalley and Ecco books for an advanced copy of the book for my honest review. 
On sale 7/7/20

Even if I appreciated the style of writing the plot didn't keep my attention and the story fell flat.
Not my cup of tea.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Wow... Where do I begin?? I loved You Again! It was a beautifully crafted and written story about trauma, motherhood, dreams, regrets, and duty and how all of those things affect how we perceive and receive our present, past, and future. The story line is exciting, thrilling, and just the right bit of confusing to keep you reeled in. The main character, Abigail, was amazingly flawed, honest, and dynamic. I loved her because she was messy, brave, and bold. While Abigail is a sympathetic character even if she wasn’t, I would still love her and how she was written because amazingly written, dynamically flawed women characters are more than a little hard to come by!

However, while the prose is amazing, the story line beautiful, and the characters vivid, I did take quite awhile to fully get into the book. The first cluster of chapters, I think, are a bit slow and the sudden and unexplained convergence of the split-narrative(s) threw me off for a bit until I realized what was going on and went back to reread to fully absorb the story. I also think that the prose reaches its height the closer you get to the middle of the novel. The first third of the novel seems like a bit of a ‘warm-up’ compared to the following two-thirds.

But all in all, I had to give this novel a straight 5-stars. What it lacked in initial first impressions, it made up for with lovely characters, beautiful storyline with amazing lessons, and thoughtful questions and musings on female adulthood and what it means to pursue dreams after one is well past their ‘peak.’

I highly recommend You Again! It’s one of the best novels I’ve read so far in 2020.

Abigail,, a forty something graphic designer for a pharmaceutical company, is headed home one night when she spots her younger self on the streets of NY.  Once a developing artist with a troubled situation in her past, Abigail is now a mom of two living with her family in Brooklyn.  As she begins to see her younger self repeatedly, her home life becomes more complicated.  Is it real, a dream, a psychological disorder?  This is a book about why and how we become who we are and how the past can affect the future.  The author is an Edgar winner and the books is labelled as a psychological mystery, but there was a fair amount of science fiction mixed into it.  It's a book I'll think about for some time..  Thank you for the copy #netgalley.

The glowing NY Times review of this novel called YOU AGAIN as a "psychological thriller," and however positive the review, I don't think that classification does the novel justice. Immergut's novel is a deeply meditative journey, on the nature of self, the obligations of motherhood, the effect of trauma on identity, and the nature of consciousness. 

I read it in a day, and I felt exhilarated at the end--a combination of "what did I just read?" and "wow."

The novel is full of strangeness and unexplained connections, but it's grounded in humanity. The central character is trying to understand herself, and to lead a good life, but what she's learning along the way is how little control she has over anything It's a challenging book in some ways because the protagonist is never quite sure, herself, of what's going on, as she suffers from memory loss. The novel requires the reader to move forward through the story with incomplete information. There is a bit of haze at the edges of each scene, where you can't quite be sure what to believe. In this way it reminded me of another novel I adored recently, FEVER DREAM by Samanta Schweblin...for the way the novel requires you to yield to what can almost be defined as a lack of coherence, and to allow yourself to feel as lost as the protagonist. This is one of those books that I'm likely to re-read immediately just to understand how it's constructed and why it had such a strong effect on me.

I’ve read this already. I feel like I’ve read this already. I’m getting a couple of books mashed together and what is left is kind of a mess. We all look back on our younger selves and wonder. Here it is more literal and less intriguing because it is so literal.