No Two Persons: A Novel

What a beautiful ode to books, to reading them, abandoning them, loving them, hating them, and perhaps most importantly, being altered by them in a way that resonates in your fundamental being.

The book centres around a book (haha) that is sent out into the world after a tragedy unspools the story out of its author. What follows are 9 anecdotal yet almost serendipitous encounters with the book, and how the book set, changed or completely obliterated the path before the lives of its readers.

Sure, with each chapter focusing on a different person’s encounter with the book, one can easily see the ‘seams’ of this story, but Erica Bauermeister masterfully weaves in tale after tale to talk about all those things - as the professor’s character suggests - human beings are willing to do to and for each other.

A profoundly thoughtful, most poignant read to invoke joy, sorrow, heartbreak and beauty.

A solid 5

This book was recommended to me and I am so glad because I truly loved it. Each time a new story began I thought there was no way I would care about yet another character and yet, I always did. I loved all the individual stories and how they all connected together. Beautifully written.

Felt like a author’s wet dream

I did not like this book at all. All the jumping around with characters reminded me of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. Need to keep notes to not get confused.

RATING: 5 stars! GENRE: Literary Fiction PUBLISHER: @stmartinspress PAGES: 320 pages PUB DATE: 5/2/2023 THANK YOUs: MANY thanks to @netgalley and @stmartinspress for gifting me this ARC in exchange for my honest review. PERSONAL NOTE TO THE AUTHOR @ericabauermeister: I found myself feeling just like Juliet. Not wanting the end to draw near. Not wanting Alice’s or any of the other characters’ stories to end. Truly, thank you. FAV QUOTE: “I think each story has its own life. In the beginning, it lives in the writer’s mind, and it grows and changes while it’s there. At some point it’s written down, and that’s the book readers hold in their hands. But the story isn’t done, because it goes on to live in the readers’ heads, in a way that’s particular to each of them. We’re all caretakers of the stories. Writers are just the lucky ones that get to know them first. SYNOPSIS: Alice is young and talented, and ever since she can remember she’s wanted to be a Writer. So with the help of one person believing in her, she writes an extraordinary debut novel. Throughout the book we get to see how the story resonates in the lives of 9 specific readers (an Assistant, an Actor, an Artist, a Diver, a Teenager, a Bookseller, a Caretaker, a Coordinator, and an Agent), and how it transforms each of them. REVIEW: This was my first book by New York Times bestselling author, Erica Bauermeister and I devoured it! She has such a poetically, descriptive writing style that completely drew me in. It’s deeply-moving and proves how just ONE book can affect each person that reads it, and how It can be both unexpected and beautiful.