I Loved You in Another Life is a romantic magic realism story. It follows two teenagers, Evan and Shosh, who both have huge crosses to bear. Shosh copes with the death of her sister Stevie with alcohol. Evan deals with being abandoned by his dad in a much more healthy way, but still struggles with guilt related to his mom and little brother. It ended up being a much heavier story than I was anticipating, but still a hopeful one with a unique storyline.
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Individually, Evan and Shosh begin to hear songs that seemingly make themselves known only to them, and before long it brings them together. Their story is interspersed with vignettes of people from the past, from a range of time periods and countries, who also experienced the same phenomenon. I don't always love reincarnation storylines because I don't believe in it, but this didn't really feel like a reincarnation story, rather the continuation of something that's happened for a select few people for many generations.
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This is a magic realism story and those elements are strong, but it's also a raw, emotional one with the issues that our main characters have to face. One can't deny the hopeful undercurrent of it all, though.

This book left me very confused. I read the whole book and I still don’t quite understand what I read. I don’t know if that makes sense. The character Shosh…the name alone annoyed me. The flashbacks…what was the purpose? I was so excited for this one but I was so disappointed.

This book right here got me on my feelings
I truly didn’t expect this book to got me like in the end did. Is nice and emotional, I would definitely recommend this to my social circle

I first picked up this book over a year ago. In that time I’ve picked it up, put it down, picked it up… just kept giving it more chances because it really seemed like something I’d love but ultimately it was meh.

The overall premise was great but there was just something missing and I never found myself invested in the characters or their story.

This book had ALL the feels. You wanted so much for them to see what you were seeing. I loved the continuation and the story as a whole. Brilliant!

This was a great coming of age story. I was invested in the journeys of each main character. The magical realism elements were beautifully done. This book was very well written. Highly recommend!

I tried many times to get into I Loved You in Another Life but this one just did not stick with me. I could not connect with the story but I have heard a lot of good things about this book, so maybe it was just me.

Thank you to NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Penguin Young Readers Group | Viking Books for Young Readers for my gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.

I will read everything that Arnold writes. This was so good and I’ve recommended it to many readers!

I'm not sure what it was about this book, but it did not grab my attention at all. I might have not been in the right headspace to enjoy it as much as I wanted too. I had to mark it as DNF for now.

David Arnold’s timeless love story spanning continents and generations carries the best elements of an epic soul-mate tale. Anything soul-mate related thrills the fanfiction reader in me. Therefore, this book easily makes the best new books of October list. Paired with a real musical element from the author, this unique novel should be making it on top of your TBR this month.

I Loved You in Another Life is a rather interesting take on YA romance as it blends in some magical realism to significant effect. However, despite this novel's technical merits, I struggled to connect and care for our two love birds, which is a considerable problem. If one does not care about the central couple in a romance, then why would a reader care if they get their HEA or not?

I Loved You in Another Life started out incredibly slow, but once the story picked up it was very heartwarming. The story is beautiful and will pull on your heartstrings.

I have tried to read this book twice now, and I cannot get past the first 15%. I'm not sure if it's the writing or the characters themselves. I'm hopeful that eventually I can come back to this book and enjoy it, especially since I liked David's previous book The Electric Kingdom. i'm giving this a neutral rating for now because 10% is not enough to review a book in my opinion.

This young adult romance hit hard in the romance which made up for the lighter punch in plot. The book is a slow burn and took me a while to really get into it. I get where it was coming from with the inserts of other timelines but I didn’t really need them and another format may have fit better? I did like the characters, obviously Will was a favorite of mine. Evan and Shosh were harder for me to connect to (which made sense, their characters were massively closed off to start) but once I did this was definitely a story that made me cry in the end. I loved the imagery of the music they were hearing and loved the artistic representation in this one. Evan and Shosh don’t know each other but they are both adrift in a strange point in their lives, Evan is considering putting his dreams on hold since his father left and his mother has breast cancer and he worries about his younger brother. Shosh’s sister died and she doesn’t know how to go on without her. While they don’t know each other when they meet it’s like they do. A sweet love story. Overall I gave this one 3.5 stars rounded up for the well done emotional aspect.

I loved the way this book took me around the world. It was heartbreaking, beautiful and wonderful all the same. The writing grasped me from the first page and I loved Evan and Shosh.

Started out a bit choppy and all over the place. Once the rhythm sets in it's a very beautiful story.

Evan and Shosh hear the song of someone mysterious. They aren't sure where it comes from or why, but only they can hear it. They meet and are immediately drawn together. This is a beautiful love story, a friendship story, a story of a boy and his mom and their unbreakable bond. It is so much more than can be described. It's beautifully written and makes you laugh and cry. It definitely reinforces believing in soulmates.

This book was extremely slow and felt long. I honestly could not get into the story. It took me a long time to read it, nearly a month. I typically read a book in 2 to 3 days. I Did not finish this story. I did not feel connected to it in anyway. I guess I was looking for a strong emotional connection because of the young adult aspect. Young adults feel and live by their emotions. In this book I did not sense that in anyway.

Unfortunately, while I loved reading David Arnold's other books, I had to dnf this one at 20%. I still look forward to reading more of his books in the future.
I'm still going to give it a 3 star rating because while it wasn't for me I didn't find any majors flaws. It was just a book I couldn't get into.

*Thank you Penguin randomhouse for an eARC In exchange for an honest review.*

One of my favorite stories is What Dreams May Come and this story is very reminiscent of that. We follow Evan & Sosh, two people with very intense situations at home, tying to survive the start of adulthood.

Sosh’ sister died and the only coping mechanism she has is alcohol. She can't imagine making to LA to pursue acting now. Evan's mom has cancer and his dad ditched him and his little brother. He can't imagine leaving to goto Alaska now. Oh, and they both keep hearing the same songs even though they dont know each other.
A whimsical story about souls who will always find each other, i am obsessed.