No Two Persons is an amazing novel about the many different ways a book can touch all of our lives, including the writer, and change them in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. This book is brilliant, beautiful, poignant, and the kind of book that stay with you long after you read it. I absolutely loved it and highly recommend it. Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC.

What an interesting story! I am not quite sure how to review it in all honesty. There is something beautiful and striking in all the interconnected characters and their stories. Alice wrote a seemingly great book that touched so many and it’s fascinating to see how it affects each differently. Yet by the end, I felt as if something was missing. Having the characters meet perhaps or their stories shared with Alice even; not sure.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I really enjoyed this novel. At its core this is a book about books and how one book can touch many different lives in vastly different ways. I like how the book was almost like a series of short stories where every chapter was a new character and the only thing they had in common was the book. Some stories were stronger than others but over all I think this was a great book and I would recommend it!

No Two Persons ever read the same book. Erica Bauermeister is a go to read for me. I love her books and her writing. This book is exceptional in the way is shows how books can connect us. These characters will resonate and stay with you. Just like the story Theo that brings them all together, this book will leave you thinking.
I especially loved all the strong women characters.
So many wonderful things within these pages.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC!

"No two persons ever read the same book, or saw the same picture" - The Writings of Madame Swetchine, 1860

The book, No Two Persons, begins with this epigraph; what a fitting epigraph this is.

The book starts with Alice, the author of the novel entitled Theo, which appears in every subsequent character's story. Each of these characters reads Theo, and finds something different from the process of doing so. Rowan, the actor with a secret, finds purpose, Nola, the teenager struggling with homelessness, finds forgiveness, and William, the recent widower, finds connection. In each of the nine stories, we're dropped into the character's lives; we learn more about them, what their hopes and fears are, and most importantly, their thoughts before and after reading Theo. And while each of the characters find different meanings from reading Theo, the characters aren't as distinct as they seem at first glance. There's connection even amongst the differences.

Erica Bauermeister's writing is evocative, and I found myself laughing and crying along with the nine characters she brings to life in this book. The book is beautifully written, haunting and poignant; I found myself not only unable to put this book down, but also, thinking about this book long after it was done.

No two persons ever read the same book; Erica Bauermeister, in this book, shows us just how true that statement is.

I was provided with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I read. A lot. Books hit people differently. Some people love a book, some people like it, and then others absolutely hate it. It makes sense - we are all different. I see this often in my book club. This book beautifully crafts a novel about how people can have the same book but how it affects them varies.

I fall into the love group for this book! I enjoyed how it felt at times if I was reading short stories and loved the subtle connections.

This book was utterly delightful and insightful. Beautifully written and very thought provoking. It's the story of a book as perceived by several different readers, or, rather, the story of several readers who happen to have had contact with this book. It's like a collection of short stories with a general theme, and only somewhat tied together in small places.

It's amazing how much Bauermeister made me feel about each of the readers. The book was emotional, without being melodramatic. I'm very impressed with the author's scene building and ability to create a whole personality of a character in just a single chapter. This book is a great example for anyone interested in writing, as Bauermeister's skill in the craft of writing was inspiring.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think I found an error in the book, in the chapter on the bookseller. Annalise had explained that a day, measured by an atomic clock, has 86,400.002. Later, Annalise is quoted as saying "The problem is that the rotation of the earth has an extra point zero two seconds per day, on average." Shouldn't that say "point zero zero two"? I'm no math whiz so maybe I am just misunderstanding numbers.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the advanced reader copy.

Original, thought-provoking, beautiful, emotional, life-affirming--these are the adjectives that come to mind after just finishing Erica Bauermeister's latest novel. The theme is how one special book can mean so many different things to those who read it (hence the title).

Alice Fein spends years writing "Theo," inspired by her cherished brother, and more years getting it published and in the hands of readers. Along the way, we get to know the reclusive Alice as much as she will allow and are introduced to others who play a role in the book's success: the young mother who finds the book in the slush pile at the literary agency where she works for a low salary, the high-profile literary agent who accepts the book for publication, a bookshop clerk who promotes the book locally and makes a personal connection with the author, and the actor who narrates the audiobook. Beyond their career roles, they also find their personal lives forever changed by this book. And there are more characters who have nothing to do with the book's publication but find that it touches their lives.

Each of the ten wonderfully drawn characters is memorable, but my favorites are the homeless teenager secretly living in the garden shed on school property, the artist who finds a way to make her work soar after tiring of her two-dimensional sea glass jewelry, and the aforementioned movie action hero who desperately needs to change careers. Others influenced by the book include a daring free diver, a retiree taking on a job as caretaker of a ghost town, and a female fencing coach/intimacy coordinator for movies.

It's a book about sibling relationships, the effects parents have on their children--positive and negative--, how inspiring teachers can make all the difference, the difficulty of finding the right partner, discovering new ways to lead one's best life and, of course, finding inspiration from books. I love the way these individuals' stories can overlap--sometimes just a bit and sometimes much more. And I was moved by the author's luminous prose and the way she chose not to tie things up in a bow at the end, but left the future open to possibilities, opportunities, and hope.

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read and provide an honest review of this book.

As a long-time fan of Erica Bauermeister’s books, I was thrilled to receive this ARC.

I’ve given a four rating, though it’s really too low for a book that made me feel the way this one did. How can one book make you feel alert, curious, compassionate, and wrapped in a warm blanket? It took me a little too long to catch on to the structure, closely resembling a series of short stories, all based on a book and its impact on the reader.

So many characters to love, so many thoughts and opinions. I loved this book; it probably deserves a 5-star rating if only I hadn’t been so slow on the uptake.

Thanks very much to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the eARC of this interesting book, another fast read.

No Two Persons is more like a series of interconnected short stories (a la Magnolia or Love Actually) than a novel, all relating to a fictitious novel, Theo, and its different effects on *this* book’s characters. In general I liked this book, though certain of the stories resonated more with me than others (the audiobook narrator, the diver). The author’s prose is wonderful, and I’d be interested in reading her other works, with which I am not familiar. I wished we learned more details about the plot of Theo (the novel-within-a-novel) earlier in the book, to help understand better why most of the characters here loved it so much.

But, if you are a fan of the interconnected short story format and are a book lover, you will likely love this novel.

loved this book told in many different point of views and how a book touches each person. I liked how it ended up connecting all of the people from all different places. loved this story

This is a powerful collection of interwoven short stories that tell about how a book can move each of us in a different way. It is beautifully written. Destined to be a favorite of 2023. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to be an early reader in exchange for my review.

What a delightful book about the power of story and books. Each chapters is a different persons experience with a certain book and how it meets them in their life. I really enjoyed how things were loosely connected and just seeing how this book met each characters. Now I really wish the book in the book was a real book!

"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."

This book is a premise that I hadn't read before. It's a story of ten different people. The first one writes a book to help cope with deep sorrow in her life and the nine others experience the book in their own unique way, through the lens of their own lives and get affected differently.

Some of them are connected to each other in small ways, some in bigger ways, and some not really. And yet this book flows through their life and doesn't leave them the same as a result.

"It was probably six hours later when Theo met the love of his life. There were no fireworks, no steamy glances across a room. Just two human beings, falling together like puzzle pieces, which made sense because both of them were broken, their edges not the smooth arcs or straight lines of others, which fit easily into so many situations. No, there was only one place each of them belonged, and that was with the other. It sounded dramatic, but wasn’t. More like an animal finding its natural habitat."

Some people will say it's cheesy and it's more like interconnected short stories than it is a novel. And some of the characters have a lot of telling vs showing. And yet I loved it. I loved the broken characters. I loved waiting to see how they'd be connected. I loved waiting to see when and how the book would show up and I loved seeing how it would change them. I felt connected and invested in each of these characters.

"Different from sleeping, where you had no choice where you went. Picking up a book was a decision: I’m going to go away. The exciting possibility: I may not come back the same."

I am not the same because I read this beautiful book. Because, books, they change you. And I am so grateful for that.

with gratitude to netgalley and St. Martin's Press for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review

This book was incredibly unique. No Two Persons takes you on a journey through several individuals having a pivotal moment in their life that was influenced by reading a book called “Theo”. Some of the mini stories were more enthralling than others. One was fairly slow going. For the most part this is a book that helps you gain perspective on how life and simple events can have profoundly different effects on different people.

A gem of a book a story with characters stories that come alive.A book about books a story that captured my heart a book I will be recommending.an author that never fails to keep me turning the pages.#netgalley #st.martinsbooks

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC of this title.

This emotional book reads as interconnected short stories that are told by different characters but all center on one thing: a published novel. The first story is told by the author of the fictional novel, giving background on the grief that she wants to move past. The subsequent stories are told from those who are affected by her novel, and what it means to them in their lives. Near the end, you start to see some of the characters come together in different ways, which nicely ties the book together.

This is definitely a slow burn, but one that I enjoyed, especially since it shows the power that books can have over us all.

One book. One Author. Nine Readers. Ten reactions, ten responses, ten connections. Ten different ways the book spoke directly to them. It's a truly innovative and creative storytelling.
Bauermeister put into ten stories that which all readers know--we may read the same book, but we won't read the same story in it. That's the one of the most amazing thing about books, right?You and I will never respond to a book in the same way.

I enjoyed the different voices, each was unique and came from such different places. No character came across as flat, all were carefully crafted and multi-faceted. Each person was markedly changed by one book, written by a person who just needed to get the story out of her head and heart and on paper. I don't know that I've ever considered so carefully how a book speaks to its author before.

The most important voice, in my mind, is that of the book itself. Theo (the book in the stories) is honestly the main character, interacting with its author and each reader, ultimately connecting some the people who connected with it.

This is book club/literary club material. I highly recommend it, and am honestly heading over to pre-order a hardback copy for my shelf so I can revisit it again and again.

What a book! The stories were compelling, the writing was exquisite, and it left me thinking about the people inside for days after it ended. One of the best books I read this year!

No Two Persons takes us on a journey, told in multiple points of view, from the inspiration for a fictional novel to the lives it touched. I fell in love with the characters and was reluctant to turn the last page and leave the world the author wove. This is the best book I’ve read in a year. Read this immersive novel today!