I really enjoyed this story and the sliding door concept. The beginning started off really strong and then the middle felt a little repetitive just with the talk of guilt so much in regards to her friend. I absolutely adored the ending and it made me tear up. Beautiful story! Thank you so much!

The Other Side of Now by Paige Harbison was just amazingly written and put together! The story is about a woman named Meg Bryan aka stage name Lana Lord. Meg is a famous and basically looks like she has everything she could want on the outside but is actually insanely unhappy on the inside. So she books a flight to Ireland. The exact place that her and her best friend Aimee always dreamed of moving to. Paige actually somehow ends up in Ireland but in an alternative reality where she is young again and her best friend Aimee is still alive. This book caught my attention from the very beginning and never let go. I enjoy most books that include magical realism and/or self discovery. This book had it all! It actually reminded me a little of one of my favorite books from last year called "A Novel Love Story" by Ashley Posten. This book was about the impact on the choices that we make in life and how if we had the choice would we choose to live our lives differently. This book beautifully blends humor, romance and emotional discovery in a way that was just effortless. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and to Paige Harbison for allowing me to read this ARC for my honest review. Happy reading y'all!

Loved absolutely loved this book and I did not want it to end! I could picture each life so clearly and found myself rooting for Meg to stay in her Avalon life - how I wish it was real! I love magical realism so much and I hope Paige continues to write in this genre! Outstanding

Full review to come on Goodreads and Amazon. Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for a review copy.

The Other Side of Now is a really great read! The concept of the story of "Am I living the right life for me, or should I be doing something else?" is something so universally relatable as I think everyone feels that way at least once in their lives.

It's set in the irish countryside, has a dog, found family vibes, and deep connections too. There's a lot packed into this book and I would highly recommend picking it up!

Thank you to the author and publisher for the advanced copy.

“The Other Side of Now” by Paige Harbison is a romantic magical fantasy that is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at the same time. The story opens with two teenage girls visiting a Palm reader at a small town summer carnival. One of the girls palms shows a dual lifeline that suggests living two lives while the other girls lifeline is so short the palm reader users them outside. Now as an adult and a famous TV soap opera star our heroine is turning 30. She is terribly unhappy with her life and she is still suffering the tragic loss of her best friend which she totally blames on herself. On a whim she books a ticket to Avalon Ireland, where she planned to attend an arts college along with her best friend which never came to fruition. Upon arriving in this very small town it seems everyone knows her, not the TV personality, but her true self!
In this sliding door novel her choice to live this second life forces her to see and deal with the past choices she made, the opportunities she has missed, and the possibilities that could have ensued if she had chosen a different path.

This book is a great reminder to appreciate all we have while we have it, the value of true friendship and family. This is an engaging story about healing and forgiveness and I highly recommend it.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Paige Harbison’s The Other Side of Now is a captivating blend of magical realism and self-discovery. The novel follows Meg Bryan, a successful actress with a seemingly perfect life—fame, fortune, and a romance with Hollywood’s latest heartthrob. But beneath the glamour, she is deeply unhappy. Following a breakdown at her 30th birthday party, Meg impulsively travels to Ireland, a place she and her late best friend, Aimee, once dreamed of moving to. Upon arrival, she finds herself in an alternate version of her life, one where she never became famous, her best friend is alive, but distant, and she has a completely different set of relationships, including a history with an attractive bartender. As she navigates this strange but familiar reality, Meg is forced to confront the consequences of her past choices and question which version of her life is truly the one she wants.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Harbison strikes the perfect balance of magical realism, using the alternate reality not just as a plot device, but as a way to explore the long-term impact of the choices we make. The story raises thought-provoking questions about success, happiness, and whether the grass is truly greener on the other side. The writing is engaging, and Meg’s journey is both heartfelt and fun to follow. The novel blends humor, romance, and emotional depth in a way that feels effortless, making it a highly enjoyable read. I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who enjoys character-driven stories with a touch of the extraordinary.

This book was freaking perfection!! I waited what felt like forEVERRRR for the ARC to come through (or was I just that impatient for the title? Ha!) and happy to report it was worth the wait. So many different angles to explore, and I am a huge sucker for the 'two different avenues' way of story-telling.

4.75/5.0

I sped through this one in a day. I couldn’t put it down! I truly loved this story and flew through it. Love the details of how it was told. Must read!

A special thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for a ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Lana Lord aka Meg Bryan is a famous Hollywood actress with a hit show but she feels empty and unfulfilled inside. At her thirty birthday, she decides to book a trip down memory lane and head to Avalon, in Ireland where she and her best Aimee were to go to college before Aimee died. When Meg lands in Avalon, she realizes she is living the life she would have had she gone to college, is this the life she is supposed to be living? When she sees Aimee alive, she knows she is here for a reason, to make amends with Aimee sure, but maybe a whole lot more too!

First, let me say I couldn’t read this book fast enough, I wanted to absorb this book, find out what was happening with the characters. The author did a fabulous job of connecting the past and the present. There are tears and laughter, there is eye opening “holy crap” moments, and at the end I was reading with a goofy grin on my face. Delightful absolutely delightful, can’t wait until I can read another from Paige Haribson. Love, love, loved it!

This book was an ARC that I am very grateful to have received from NetGalley. I would rate it as a 4.75. Paige Harbison has 3 YA books under her belt, starting when she was 19. This was her first adult book, I was not familiar with the YA novels, and I couldn't put it down!

Meg aka Lana Lord is a well-known tv actress in Hollywood. She has not returned to Florida since the death of her best friend Aimee 10 years earlier. Now, the show that brought her fame is possibly facing cancelation, Meg is increasingly unhappy and feels like her boyfriend is cheating, and just needs a break so she leaves her 30th birthday party, books a flight and air bnb in Ireland then sneaks out of the house and is on her way. This is where a predictable rom-com trope morphs. When she arrives in the small Irish town where her dream college was located, everyone in town seems to know her, but she doesn't know them. Even Aimee is alive and well living in town with her husband and kids, although Aimee and Meg haven't spoken in several years. As Meg tried to figure out what was real and what was not after her past no longer came up on Google, although her show, other shows and her favorite music were still known by everyone around her. I was reminded of Brigadoon without the music or The Truman Show as she keeps mentioning. Every time I thought I had figured out which life was real and which was an alternate life, something would happen that would change my mind. I was glued to the book until the end. If you are looking for a fun read, I recommend The Other Side of Now.

This book is about choices you make and then add some déjà vu in. In this book, you will find the following:
Friendships, great loss/grief, new love, life-changing events, travel, knowing what you want in life, romance, and many more things.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Paige Harbison's team for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Holy crap! I've read many books with this type of story but I have never read one that had the plot twists of The Other Side of Now. It was very good and the author writes well. I say down and read this book with very few breaks because I had a hard time putting it down.

My only complaint is that the intimate scene is peppered with words that don't seem to be written by the same person. It bordered on the crude and didn't need to.

I highly recommend The Other Side of Now.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martins Press for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review, which I'm so excited to give!

This is my very first NetGalley read, and my very first book I've read entirely electronically, and I'm so pleased to say it was a huge win. The Other Side of Now introduces us to Meg Bryan, a small town Florida girl, who along with her best friend Aimee, is seeking a bigger life on stage. At age 30, she is the star of a hit TV drama, has renamed herself Lana Lord, and is questioning everything about what her life has become. She is far from her parents, Aimee is dead following a tragic accident, and nothing about her life feels real. Feeling the need to escape, she spontaneously books a flight to a small town in Ireland where she and Aimee once dreamed of attending a school of fine arts. And that's when things get weird.

This is a book written in the slide of Sliding Doors, with a healthy dose of a Christmas Carol. It's not a holiday book, but the themes of past, present, and future felt very similar here. As Meg enters her "alternate life" in Ireland, I did have to seriously suspend belief (it is fantasy/magical realism, after all) but I found the characters all utterly charming but still real, which helped with what I found to be their very unrealistically chill responses to her situation. I never rolled my eyes, and all of Meg's struggles, her confusion, and her delight came across clearly and relatedly. Contemporary fiction that is not a thriller nor a romance is hard to find, and even harder for me to find that I actually enjoy. This was a huge win.

While this is a generally fast, lighthearted read, there are heavy themes of loss and of what it means to try and run away from and forget the most painful parts of our pasts. What happens when you excise from your life the things that form who you are? What does it mean to live always with the expectation that nothing, truly, will ever be good, joyful, and untainted ever again?

4.25 stars, and highly recommended.

4.5 rounded up. I would’ve argued this was a solid 4 stars until the last 15% or so - the play scene and what followed were so utterly heartbreaking and strong I had to round up. I wasn’t a fan of Kiera and I think this started a bit slow, but it caught itself up. Loved the fresh take on magic realism/alternate reality. Definitely will look out for more from this author.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I'm usually not the biggest fan of time travel/alternate reality type books, but this one worked for me. I liked all the characters in this: they felt really authentic and interesting. I also really enjoyed Meg's journey, and the ending really worked for me.

This book provides a fascinating insight into what would happen if you made a different choice that changed the entire course of your life. After the unfortunate death of Aimee of which she wholeheartedly blamed herself for, she got into her car and drove to California. She became Lana which was fitting that she became an actress as she changed herself entirely whether it be physically or emotionally. She was a caricature of herself. She hid behind Brilliance to forget her path. Once she went to Avalon, her life completely changed. She became Meg who lived there because she choose to go to school there. She had loving and supportive friends who didn't judge her on how she looked that day or the people she surrounded herself with. She liked her physical appearance. She was truly happy. One of my favorite scenes is when Aimee leaves to go to the party and remarks that she is happy and alive. The ending is perfect when Meg is in a bar with her fellow actors in London. It makes one truly believe in fate..

The Other Side of Now was both a thoughtful and very enjoyable read. I loved the sliding doors concept, and the exploration of the way that one action taken could have on a life was great. And yet, we hope that the underlying premise is true - that we will be able to hit the big notes of family/friendship/life in whatever path we choose. Harbison does an incredibly admirable job wrestling her characters into a storyline, and an ultimate destination, that felt both true and plausible, while still keeping the reader in suspense - I was very near the end of this story and I was still totally unsure about what the ending resolution would be, so when the truth of it all did finally emerge, it was a gut-punch. It's lovely to read a book this descriptive and fun that is still capable of delivering on those big emotional moments.

I was invited by the publisher to review this book. Meg Bryan, aka Lana Lord, appears to have it all with a spot on a popular TV show and a relationship with a big star in Hollywood. After having a bit of a meltdown on her 30th birthday, she heads to Ireland, and a village that once held dreams for her and her departed friend, Aimee. The town is mostly welcoming, save for a bartender. And yet, on her phone reveals a photo montage of her life - in this town, with these people, with the bartender who is actually her ex. And her best friend Aimee is alive! - but, they do not have a relationship. Meg realizes she is living a different version of her life through some strange slip of time, and needs to make use of it to fix what matters.

I really enjoyed the plot of this book, as well as the characters and setting. Meg was wonderful in Ireland, and I liked that she easily recognized what needed to be done. There are actually a lot of layers of story here, and the author easily explores them without deviating from the matter at hand or making things confusing or rambling. There are also a lot of emotional elements to this book, and it all blends just perfectly.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Other Side of Now tells the story of famous TV star Meg who has just turned 30 and is unhappy with her life in Hollywood. She is struggling with grief over the tragic death of her best friend, Aimee, in a car accident when the two of them were 19 and living in Florida. On a whim, she books a flight to Avalon, Ireland, where she had planned to attend college but decided not to after Aimee did not get in. Arriving at her rental cottage, she goes to get a meal at the nearby pub and is surprised to realize that everyone there knows who she is and it's not because of her Hollywood persona, it's because she actually lives in Avalon after having gone to school there. In this alternative universe, Meg realizes that has a close friend in Keira, and has just broken up with her boyfriend, Cillian, whose mother owns the pub. Most importantly though - Aimee is alive! In this universe, Meg DID attend Avalon School of the Arts and Aimee joined her there a semester later, married her high school sweetheart (who Meg can't stand), and they have two kids together. There is so much going on here- like a "Sliding Doors" meets "One Italian Summer." No spoilers - but the Epilogue made the story come alive for me. This story is about friendship, family, and personal growth. I loved it - and look forward to reading more by this author. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this novel in exchance for an honest review.