4.5 stars

This was such a beautiful book. I loved reading about the different ways one book affected so many different people. These stories were so heart warming and really touched me. Particularly the story about the homeless girl, I was so happy after her story. And the ending was put together perfectly. It all flowed from year to year throughout the entire book.

I don’t really know how I would categorize this book on my shelf, but I would highly recommend it to anyone really. It was a breath of fresh air!

***Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC copy in return for an honest review***

📖BOOK REVIEW📖

No Two Persons - Erica Bauermeister
Rating: 5/5 ⭐️

“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.”

This book. Holy cow. I will be thinking about this one for a long time. I often wonder how my favorite books affect other people - and this was an absolutely beautiful exploration of that. This is absolutely the perfect expression of how much a work of fiction can change someone’s life and heart.

Basically if you like books and believe in the power of stories - read this immediately! The audiobook was performed so beautifully by an entire cast - I can’t recommend it enough. Every narrator brought so much life and heart to their character. ♥️

Publish date: May 2, 2023

Thank you to @netgalley and @macmillan.audio for the audiobook and @stmartinspress for the gifted copy!


#netgalley #netgalleyreads #audiobookreview #bestaudiobooks #newrelease #notwopersons #ericabauermeister #books #audiobook #audiobookstagram #booksbooksbooks #bookstagram #bookreview #bookrecommendations #bookchallenge #goodreads

This charming novel will delight book lovers -- and writers. The story illustrates the truth that no persons read the same book because no two readers bring the same life experience and viewpoint to it, A young writer completes a novel but is reluctant to try getting it published because it is so intensely HERS and she doesn't think anyone else will receive it properly and understand her character. A writing professor and friend tells her that every book is different for everyone who reads it, and that is its true value. The rest of the book follows several people -- beginning with the literary agency assistant who discovers the book in the slush pile --whose lives are affected, and even dramatically altered, by having read the book. No car chases or shootouts, no murder in every chapter -- this book is just pure pleasure all the way.

Oh my, this is why I read.

"Somewhere so completely else that the grief wouldn't find him. Ignoring the fact that grief is not a stalker but a stowaway, always there and up for any journey."

Thanks to the lovely folks at NetGalley for the opportunity to read this wonderful book.

3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.

No Two Persons is definitely a unique book. It's a book about a book, and the way that one book impacts the lives of 9 different (mostly unconnected) readers. It's told as a series of short stories, with some minor connections between characters from different stories.

I am a fan of Bauermeister's writing, and this book is no exception. I enjoy her writing, and I like that with this book, we got such a varied cast of characters. Just like the characters in the book, everyone who reads this book will likely relate to a different story or character within its pages.

As someone with a terrible memory for books (after I've read them, and sometimes, during the reading of them), I did struggle a bit with recalling who characters were or what their story was when they were mentioned later in the book, during someone else's story. Due to time constraints, I had to read this book over a period of several days, and by day 5, I may have read a name that sounded familiar, but had zero recollection of who that was - which took away from the experience of appreciating the intertwining of the stories. That is not the fault of the author or the book, however, as it's an issue with my own memory.

I will say that when you have 9 different people's stories (10 if you count the story of the author of the fictional book), it can be a little tricky to keep everyone straight - especially since some of the characters show up in a supporting role much further into the book than where their own story was highlighted. So if you are someone that gets overwhelmed by a large cast of characters, you may want to take some basic notes about them as you go along.

Because it's all short stories, I don't think that understanding or remembering each character is vital to enjoy the book. You can read each story as its own and get enjoyment from it. But I think making the connections of who the characters are when they appear in other's stories only adds to the experience.

Overall, while I did like the book, I was left feeling like I wanted a little bit more from it. I see a lot of people giving it 5-star reviews, so maybe it's just me. I loved the concept of it, I (mostly) enjoyed all the separate stories, and the writing was beautiful. But the book didn't move me as much as I had hoped, and I just kept feeling like I was waiting for something more. However, I will continue to pick up everything that Erica Bauermeister writes, as I think she's a phenomenal writer.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

I loved the idea for this book! I am in so many different buddy reads and book clubs and I am always intrigued by the differing opinions about books. What worked and what didn’t. I always say just because it didn’t work for me, doesn’t mean someone else won’t love it! And when I see a lot of mixed reviews for a book it always makes me want to read it even more! It is interesting to see how this particular book, Theo, changes the lives of not only the author but of the nine readers. This is a perfect book for those who love books and reading and who enjoy character driven novels. I enjoyed it as a whole but wanted more! It was almost like a collection of short stories, with each character we only got a small glimpse of their lives and it left me with questions and wanting more! 😅
My favorite part was the origination of the book with the author.

What a unique storyline for a book. As many readers know, no two people will read the same book. You might read the same title, but each reader will get something different out of it. We take into each book our own life stories and ideas. This book is a wonderful example of this with a fascinating cast of characters.

A family tragedy leads to Alice writing a story she never expected to be so well received or liked. She had written before, but she always kept her feelings and anything personal hidden deep. Until now.

What follows this part of this story is a cast of characters who each come across Alice’s book in one way or another, and their experience with it. We get to know them and their unique story before they encounter the book, and in some cases, we get to know what they think of the book.

Some of the characters are even connected to each other, which at first can be a little confusing trying to remember how. As the story progresses, their connections become more clear which helps to further illustrate how we each respond to the books that we read.

I really enjoyed this book and the unique format. Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for the copy of this book. All views are my honest opinion.

No Two Persons
Author: Erica Bauermeister
St. Martin's Press
Release date: May 2, 2023

To me, Bauermeister has written a masterpiece of fiction with No Two Persons. The book is a collection of individual yet connected vignettes about a book. Bauermeister tells us about Alice, the author of that book, and how she came to write it. What makes this novel so unique and moving is that each profound story tells of an individual's relationship with Alice's book. The parts flow beautifully, all rich in emotion.

One of the vignettes moved me especially, although all are very touching and memorable. I think most readers will have at least one character that resonates with them deeply and becomes imprinted in their heart like my favorite one did.

No Two Persons immediately claimed a spot as one of my and many other book lovers' top reads of 2023. Don't be surprised if it's at the very tip top of my list at the end of this year.

Thank you to Net Galley and St. Martin's Press for an advance reader's copy. My review is my own.
#NoTwoPersons #EricaBaumeister #StMartinsPress #NetGalley

No Two Persons by Erica Bauemiester is a beautifully layered story that captures the hearts and minds of nine readers. and how it changed their lives for the better. It is a story our main character, Alice Wein writes a book entitled "Theo." The main premise of No Two Persons is how a novel can influence the reader. Once I started reading I was immediately hooked and did not want the book to end. I felt invested in the characters and wanted it to last as long as possible. I highly recommend No Two Person for your next read.

Thank you NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read No Two Persons. I was immediately sucked in at the beginning. I loved Alice and her book, "Theo". I really wanted more of Alice though. Some of the other POV's I just did not relate to or find very interesting. I really liked Erica's idea of this book and feel it will work for many people but it just didn't work for me. It just got a little "overdone" for me.

It has been a long time in which I have read a book like this and had to highlight moultiple passages throughout. I loved every second of this book and the beautiful way the author discusses the meanings that each reader gets from a book. It was absolutely fantastic. Definitely a favorite of the year.

No Two Persons is a wonderfully imaginative story about a group of people who don’t know each other who are going through a rough patch and read the same book. Each sees a different meaning in the story which changes their life forever.

The story begins with the author, Alice and her life. She had love and loss and had been told she could be a great writer. She begins with writer’s block and then gets this incredible idea, and then she can’t stop writing. With the help of her college professor, she completes the story, and it becomes published.

The book, whose title is Theo, is about a boy who loves to swim. He has had a difficult life. His journey seems to be everyone’s life journey in one way or another.

But some of its readers find so much more meaning in the narrative.

The readers are:

Lara who is an assistant at a publishing company who has just had a baby. She is working from home, exhausted and seems to be in the throws of post partum. She is tired of her life and scared for her future. Then she receives a manuscript to read.

Rowan, a movie superstar whose stardom is dimming because of a health issue. He knows he needs to find something, or he will just disappear. Then, his agent gives him a book to read.

Miranda lives a solitary life in the wilderness. She is an artist. She finds a dog and begins to explore. Her mother whom she barely tolerates sends her a care package. In it is a book. Her mother is constantly asking if she has read the story. Finally, Miranda reluctantly picks up the book.

Tyler is a young boy who loves the water even before he knows how to swim which caused his parents embarrassment and anxiety. He understands he is different but doesn’t understand why. When a tragedy occurs, he is given a book to read.

Nola is in high school and wants to go to college. But she has been keeping secrets from the administration because she knows if they find out about her tragic life they will send her on a different path. The book, Theo is on her to be read for class.

Kit is a bookseller in Maine. He loves his life. He loves books, and his lifestyle. He meets an ambitious woman and falls in love, and they marry. They are very different personalities. But one day he picks up a book from an author who has come into the bookstore he works at.

William is an elderly man who has just lost the love of his life, his wife Abigail. He is having a hard time living without her. He decides he needs a change of scenery, so he applies for a job as a caretaker of a town. During a blizzard he notices in a box a book his wife and daughter had been reading together before Abigail’s death.

Juliet spends most of her time on movie sets making sure love scenes are appropriately shot. She travels a great deal and is married. But her marriage is beginning to not fulfill her. On a plane on the way home she opens an e-book a friend had sent her awhile back. She begins to listen to the book.

Madeline is the number one book agent. She has made so many careers she has lost count, including Alice’s. Her work and her books are her life. And she is proud of what she has accomplished.

This inspiring cast of characters will begin new journeys all because of a simple story. In No Two Persons you will fall in love with each person and feel great pleasure as they begin to see their life change. Amazing!

Thank you #NetGalley #St.Martin’sPress #NoTwoPersons #EricaBauermeister for the advanced copy.

I loved this book about books and readers and everyone whose life intersects with them. While, in a way, it felt like a series of short stories, there were connections between the various characters that brought even more meaning to the book as a whole. I loved the way each person found insight from one book and how it applied to their own life, and how they connected to one another. I thought the structure was fascinating, and was immersed from the first sentence through to the very end. Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the advance digital copy!

Insanely and happily pogo-sticking through pages!

Wow! Wow! Wow! A fantastic book! I’m still reeling! This gem is threatening to edge out my favorite book of the year (or at least it’s a tie), and it’s for sure going on my all-time favorites shelf.

This book has a book within it called Theo, which comes into the hands of 9 people from all sorts of worlds—there’s a writer and agent, and there’s also a deep-sea diver, a homeless teenager, an intimacy coordinator (!), an actor who gets a pigment disease. This reads like a collection of short stories, with the book Theo at the center. Each character is so well-drawn, so rich—these are fabulous character studies! Theo comes at pivotal points in their lives (or creates a pivotal point), and I was completely invested in each character. Occasionally the characters’ lives cross, and I just loved that. And throughout the book, you get little snippets of the plot and gist of Theo, and you understand just why the book affects each of these people. I couldn’t wait to pick this little puppy up each day.

It’s an incredibly clever idea, and I bow to the creativity of the author. I’m bouncing high on my pogo stick through the pages of Theo, this little book within a book, and as I land on each page, I puncture it with my stick and change all the periods to exclamation points. And you know how much I love my exclamation points!!! So now I, too, am affected by Theo! Sigh, I will try to move on from my gush, which keeps seeping out of me without control.

Oh did this book get me thinking! It sent me down memory lane. I remember the pivotal moment when my best friend’s mother shoved a paperback into my 15-year-old hands, and I discovered that reading did not mean Moby Dick. The big sizzle sizzle when I realized there was a whole secret world of readers, sticking their heads into books and coming up for air, not just with their mind, but also with their heart and soul all enriched and dizzy and happy. It made me think of funny book moments, like when I spotted a small spider walking over my sheets when I had just finished Nutshell. Eek! (I got up out of bed so fast!!! I have repressed the rest of the story, lol! Did I find it and slaughter it? I don’t remember!)

And it made me think of how no two people read the same book. How I’ve shoved a cherished book into the hands of a best friend who then reads the book (or horrors, abandons it!) and thinks I’m nuts. I just love thinking about how some books grab us, some don’t, and it’s just all so personal. Of course, it depends on our mood, the time when we read it—so many factors affect our reaction to a book.

And we see a book from the writer’s point of view, an agent’s, a bookseller. We get little glimpses into writers’ thoughts on their craft. Stuff I just gobbled up.

I did a ton of highlighting. Here’s a sampling of what grabbed me. I have an advance copy of the book, so I don’t want to show a lot, in case the quotes change by publication date. It’s killing me not to add 10 pages of quotes!

“It was basic marketing—give readers what they don’t get or can’t have in regular life. A safe brush with evil. A flaming romance. Certainty.”

“But you could learn so much more, keeping your gaze down. Just as well for Alice, who had never liked meeting people’s eyes. It always felt like looking into a jam-packed closet—or opening the door to your own.”

“When she had to go out in the real world, she watched for what people didn’t know they were telling you.”

“Loved the chemical change that could happen when a story started to lift off a page, or a writer turned a small detail into an insight that shimmered.”

“Your first read of an extraordinary book is something you can only experience once.”

“…in high school they always said if you wanted to get the girl, you should read the book she was carrying around.”

“If you think you deserve to be eaten, how do you leave the ocean?”

I have one small beef, and I can’t for the life of me think of why the author would throw this comment into the book: she said this one guy was thinking of his smelly old-lady babysitters. It seems like a random comment, not something that will help us understand him. Having been an old-lady babysitter, needless to say, this did not sit well with me. Just as I was trying to recuperate from that ageist comment, she mentions it AGAIN a few pages later!! What???? Once was bad enough!

Despite that whine, I can’t dare give this book anything but 5 stars. I’m going to shove this book into all the hands I can find, but I have to be cool and realize to some, this won’t be their nirvana. It sure was mine.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.

Publication date: May 2, 2023

I have read a lot of this authors book and have enjoyed all of them.
This book was such an interesting read and I was captivated by the story.
In this book we hear the story of Alice, who has always wanted to be writer and with encouragement from a professor and a tragedy that takes place in her family, Alice is finally able to put her thoughts into a novel, “Theo”.
When the book is finally published, we find our selves looking into the lives of 9 more people who came across this book, in different ways, and when they really needed it.
I liked how in some of the stories some of the characters we integrated into other peoples stories.
A wonderful story that will stay with me.
I would like to thank NetGalley and St. Martin's press for a copy of this book.

This is a book about a writer named Alice who after suffering her own tragedy writes a book called Theo it’s subsequent chapters we learn about how the book in one way or another affected or changed the readers life from the narrator to the new mom who picked it for consideration with the publisher and on and on it has a touching book of short stories and then one way or another just like the plot the book will affect you I totally love this book and think this was a great subject and a great execution by the author. not only is the name brilliant but so is the book I loved it and think it is a total five star read and it’s a book I will definitely be reading again in the future I have never read a book by this author but I would definitely be interested in doing just that. I received this book from NetGalley and a publisher but I am leaving this review voluntarily please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

This is a unique and lovely book about books and readers. The story opens with Alice, an aspiring writer, and her path to writing her first novel. The book then follows the journey of that novel through nine different characters as it affects them in different ways. There are some connections between the stories and characters, and Bauermeister writes all her characters with depth and complexity. It was very easy to imagine their lives proceeding on in the background whenever I was immersed in the next character's chapter. This was an immersive and thoughtful book, one that I expect most book lovers will enjoy. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for a digital review copy.

Thank you To St, Martins and Netgalley for letting me read and write a review of No Two Persons. I love books about books and this one did not disappoint. One book gets read by ten different people. Each person has there own perspective on what happens in the story. Honestly it could be a bit confusing but the chapter titles helped.
This book was fast paced and I got attached to the characters. This was my first book by this author but I will add her to my tbr list.

“No Two Persons” by Erica Bauermeister ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre: Literary Fiction. Locations: Maine, New York, Washington, Florida, California, USA. British Columbia, Canada. Time: 2010-2019.

I’m 75, and I’ve been reading since I was 4 years old. This is one of the best books I’ve ever read!

One book. Nine readers. Ten changed lives. Alice is a keen observer and talented writer of safe stories. When her brother dies, breaking her heart, she tears herself free from safe stories and creates a stunning novel titled “Theo”. Readers discovering her book include a bone-tired literary assistant, a secretive actor, a furious artist, a competitive free-diver, a homeless student, a wondering bookseller, a grieving widower, an intimacy coordinator, an agent. Each reads something different that alters their perspective.

Author Bauermeister’s novel-within-a-novel format is powerful and moving. The main character really is the novel “Theo”. It connects the chapters and characters together. The traumas that shape us, the power of stories to guide and maybe even heal us, it’s all there in the novel and the stories.

Bauermeister’s words are full of metaphors that will delight readers: “He was not an easy child. His idea of a nap was a semicolon at best, never a full stop; a paragraph break.” and “A death sentence. Or worse, a dangling participle of an existence.”

She talks about reading between the lines: “He had grown up interpreting the movements of his father the way fishermen read the sea, always looking for what lay beneath”.

She speaks to the hearts of writers: “The sense that he could find, in the nooks and crannies of his thoughts, or soul, whatever he needed to make the characters come to life.” and “Doesn’t he know”, she thought, “the reader needs time to absorb the big reveal-a chapter break. A paragraph of description”.

If you love reading, and you believe in the power of words, you will love and believe in this book. It’s a love letter to writers and readers. That’s why it’s 5 stars from me. Thank you St. Martin’s Press, NetGalley, and Erica Bauermeister for this early copy. Publishes 5/2/2023.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

It's only April, but I already know this will be one of my favorite reads this year. A true love letter to reading and readers, this book of what feels like interconnected short stories enabled me to fully engross myself in the power of words and explore how the same story can have vastly different impacts on different people. I really love stories with multiple POVs, and the fact that this is also not a very long read kept me turning pages and itching to come back even amidst other tasks.

My favorite thing about this read was the sheer depth and emotion that each character's story packs. I'm not the type of person to cry while reading something, but several sections left me feeling hollow, with an aching desire to reach into the pages and give each character a massive hug. I cannot recommend this enough to anyone who loves reading and wants something that is short, but will pack a punch. I know the tagline for this book says "ten changed lives", but now that I've finished reading, I think I'd change it to eleven.