Debut Review: THE OTHER ME by Sarah Zachrich Jeng
Fans of fast-paced, contemporary women’s fiction will love THE OTHER ME by debut author Sarah Zachrich Jeng, launching this August.
Kelly Holter is a twenty-nine-year-old struggling artist living in Chicago who walks through a door into an alternate version of her life. New memories suddenly exist “waiting to be dislodged like the last bit of something shaken loose from its container.” Kelly can now remember passing up her scholarship to a prestigious art school so that she could remain in Michigan with her high school boyfriend and later husband Eric Hyde. These new memories of the Kelly Hyde that settled down in her hometown layer on top of those from the Kelly Holter in Chicago that no longer exists. The differences between her split selves are jarring. Chicago Kelly didn’t have a good relationship with her family back home, but Michigan Kelly hasn’t kept in touch with her friends. Chicago Kelly was exhausted as she barely carved out a living through the gig economy with no healthcare and burned the midnight oil honing her craft as a painter. Michigan Kelly, on the other hand, is cared for but feels suffocated in a controlling marriage. The charged sex scenes add to the tension with Eric, who is still a stranger despite their decade-long relationship.
Manipulation of time is evident in ripples: Chicago Kelly’s tattoos appear on her arms and vanish just as quickly; framed photos of family members change and then change back as the present resettles. The storyline accelerates into speculative suspense as we learn the how and why of Kelly’s time travel and surrounding temporal anomalies—and who is behind it. After a climax, there are three chapters given to a thoughtful ending. In the perfect resolve, time and fate are finally on Kelly’s side as she builds a future of her own choosing.
Thank you to the author and publisher for proving an eARC in an author swap.
