Book Review: The Possibilities by Yael Goldstein Love

Note: this review is not written in my grading scale style as it was written before I implemented it. Enjoy!

What if the traumatic birth of your only son, where he had to be resuscitated for 8 minutes, left you with a vivid memory that your living, breathing 8-month-old son did indeed die that day? What if this memory haunted you so much that it not only caused a rift in your marriage but also a rift in your entire reality and universe? This is the premise of Yael Goldstein-Love’s book, The Possibilities.

This book opens almost like a domestic thriller, but it quickly becomes clear that what is causing the distress is not coming from within the house but from another timeline entirely. New mom Hannah is struggling with postpartum depression and the traumatic birth of her 8-month-old son, Jack. Her fixation on her memory of him dying at birth leads to her husband, Adam, experiencing a lot of distress as well, which creates problems within their marriage. He wants Hannah to let go of her false memory, but instead, Hannah finds herself being pulled into different realities after Jack disappears. What proceeds is a uniquely crafted, poignant tale of a mother navigating the multiverse to save her son.

I thought this book segued into the science fictional elements pretty effortlessly. It starts simple—things in Hannah's reality are not matching up to what she remembers, and it is incredibly subtle. She and her therapist both believe she is suffering from panic attacks, but we quickly learn that it could be more than that.

I will say I am also incredibly biased because I am a sucker for any novel that even alludes to the idea of a multiverse, so I loved this book.

Not only is the sci-fi element enthralling, but it's also an emotional tale of the bond between mother and child and how complicated that bond really is. As soon as I finished this book, I didn't even want to start a new one. This book makes you feel feelings, and when I was done, I just wanted to let those feelings bathe over me while asking myself if I'd have made the same decisions as the protagonist.

I received an advance reader copy and have provided an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for this opportunity.