You Again audiobook

This was a simply spectacular book, the one to beat in 2020. So rare to find a book that is high concept, high-wire suspense, psychologically acute AND gloriously well-written, but You Again has it all. I loved this author’s first novel, The Captives, but this time she’s knocked it out of the park. You Again is about a middle aged woman, a designer at a pharmaceutical company, wife, mother, and former artist, who begins to see her younger self walking around on the streets of New York City. It throws the life that she and her husband, also a former artist, were delicately balancing, which begins to come apart and recombine in startling ways. No one goes unaffected in this tight, psychological thriller.Here is an early sighting of the younger self:“They stood under the umbrella, very close together, talking. I glanced at the dented graffitied doorway, and sure, yes, that had been a nightclub and I had done my time in its pounding, dusky rooms, but hadn’t that place closed in the last millenium? Now he turned and saw the cab—my cab—just pulling away from the curb, and this guy, this kid, starts to run after it down the block and gives one of those piercing fingers-in-mouth whistles—a practical skill I have always appreciated—and as he runs his umbrella—I can see it’s the five-dollar street-corner type—flips inside out in a gust and shimmers under the streetlight like a wet black lily bloom and I look at her and she’s looking at him and I know that look. Or I should say, I remember that look.”It goes nowhere you expect it to go. Art, politics, relationships, everything comes back into play. Absolutely original, piercingly beautiful. Publication date July 2020.

After finishing this book, I found myself pacing my apartment, exclaiming, "Oh wow. Oh wow! Oh boy, this is good!What an absolute thrill this story, this writing, and this content are. (Hint: if you are interested in the nature of time and existence, you'll love this.) Imagine fine literary writing telling a psychologically tense and amazing tale—one that any mature person might have imagined: if only I could talk to my younger self. But only Debra Jo Immergut could write it this way.Dive in. Don't read too much about this before leaping. Be patient—the pacing is perfect and you will understand what's going on. Everything comes out in the perfect way. Nothing is wasted in this brilliantly realized journey.

Immergut's novel is a deeply meditative journey, on the nature of self, the obligations of motherhood, the effect of trauma on identity, and the nature of consciousness. I read it in a day, and I felt exhilarated at the end--a combination of "what did I just read?" and "wow."The novel is full of strangeness and unexplained connections, but it's grounded in humanity. The central character is trying to understand herself, and to lead a good life, but what she's learning along the way is how little control she has over anything. It's a challenging book in some ways because the protagonist is never quite sure, herself, of what's going on, as she suffers from memory loss. The novel requires the reader to move forward through the story with more incomplete information than is typical when reading a novel. There is a bit of haze at the edges of each scene, where you can't quite be sure what to believe or what's going on. It reminded me of another novel I adored, Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin for the way the novel requires you to yield to what can almost be defined as a lack of coherence, and to allow yourself to feel as lost as the protagonist. It also reminded me of Golden State by Ben Winters and I think readers who were okay with the ambiguities and strangeness of that novel will also enjoy You Again.This is a book that I'm likely to re-read very soon, just to understand how it's constructed and why it had such a strong effect on me.

This is such a unique and quirky little book. And probably one of the most challenging to review due to the plot! First of all, the writing throughout is gorgeous, introspective and intense. It touches on so many deep and interesting ideas in a completely unique way. The basic plot of the book is that 46-year-old Abby has started seeing her younger 23-year old self around town, in some kind of wormhole to the past. She sees her younger self in her old favorite places, with an equally young version of her former lover.The best parts of this book were unquestionably when Abby confronts her younger self. I loved these without exception and as someone who also lived in New York at that young age, I saw so much of myself in both the younger Abby of before and the older married one of today. This is such a genius idea for a book and these parts were really well done and lovely. I also really liked the parts where she examined her marriage.The structure of the book was non-linear (which I realize is by design) but at times I found it difficult to navigate. It is perhaps a little ironic that at times this book seemed to be having an identity crisis about which version of itself it wanted to be - a thriller? A family drama? With many characters, some seemingly unrelated at first, popping in and out, and with two versions of the protagonist it could sometimes be confusing and hard to keep the timelines straight. Some of the subplots worked better than others. I liked the subplots relating to her present-day marriage, not so much the subplot with her son’s involvement in Antifa. The book is also broken up with doctor’s notes which, while an interesting idea, interrupted the flow for me. A lot of these characters are not fully explained until the end, where they are explained very well. But it still makes for a somewhat disjointed reading experience up to that point (which, you realize at the end, is fully intentional and has a reason).Much of the confusion comes together at the ending, which is wonderful. I think upon a second read, knowing the ending, this book will be even better. Knowing the ending I marvel a bit at the different writing styles in different places vs. the end, and the reason that is ultimately revealed for that.Overall this was a totally unique, if at times confusing, reading experience with so many interesting things to say about time, memories, love and the mind. If you can get through some of the disjointed parts you will be rewarded with a really neat ending that explains it. This book is fully quirky and definitely not for everyone and at times I was utterly confused but ultimately I found it to be a really unique and interesting reading experience. Talented author who does many neat things with language in this book.Thanks to NetGalley, Harper Collins and Debra Jo Immergut for the ARC of this interesting book.

You Again is quirky. It also has some beautiful writing and an odd, disjointed feel to it that added to the overall strangeness of the story.Abby see's her past self in a girl she spots one day, so begins an obsessive and atmospheric journey where perception and memory are explored in a riveting way. As Abby views her current life through a glass darkly, she takes the reader on a twisted and compelling trip through her past and present, all coloured by her artistic persona and focusing over and over on one event that defined her.It is a mystery and the eventual resolution is cleverly absorbing, leaving you with a lot to think about. This is not a thriller in the traditional sense of the word, yet it has thriller aspects, it isnt exactly a psychological thriller but the feeling of it captures that genre. Overall I loved this for its differences- it is nice to read a novel that is in no way straightforward. For that reason it wont be for everyone but it was for me and I highly recommend it.

The first thing that struck me about Debra Jo Immergut's newest novel was the gorgeous writing and her ability to nail the telling details of a character and scene. But then--wow--the story kicked into high gear and I could not put it down. This is a book of razor sharp psychological suspense coupled with literary insights and extraordinary prose.

This book took me out. I went into this thinking this would be a light read of a woman in flux, seeing her younger self and realizing that life is fine as it is. What I got is a extremely high concept, suspenseful and scientifically confusing wonderful book. Abby is the head of visual design at a pharma company - far from her dreams of being an artist. Then, she sees a skinny pair of legs in silver platforms and a pink coat and everything changes - because those legs are hers, from 20+ years prior. What follows is a story of a woman searching for something, herself, happiness, the truth. This is an exploration in how brains work, how memories stay with us forever and how the more things change, the more they stay the same. This is a terribly written review of a wonderful book. There are not enough words to talk about how wonderful and surprising this book from Debra Jo Immergut.Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

What a smart and timely novel! If you don't think so on the first page, you certainly will when a frustrated housewife joins an anarchistgroup's protest, and finds herself hammering the window of a bank branch -- and reveling when it shatters. In early 2015, Abby sees herself. Literally, her younger self walking down the street, the person Abby before a great love that left her broken and stalled in her promising career as a painter. The young woman doesn't just look like her; she IS her. The woman Abby was in the 1990s.Now Abby designs graphics for a pharmaceutical company, and keeps a household functioning despite her unfaithful husband, one son who is immersed in his girlfriend, and another son who has fallen in with sometimes violent political radicals. There's a mouthful of a sentence, and the book contains that kind of density of ideas: a deceptive detective, a brain scientist trying to understand what actually happened to Abby all those years ago, and a cast of colorful characters not one of whom is entirely what he or she seems. Meanwhile the prose is beautiful, New York City is conjured in vivid detail (down to the sprinkles on the cookies at one specific bakery), and the plot races along. Is the young woman a memory? A ghost? If she isn't an actual person, then who set Abby's house on fire?

The premise of “You Again”, by Debra Jo Immergut, intrigued me; a woman is visited by her younger self. I wondered how a writer could successfully sustain a plot and structure so ambitious. I know this type of time-bending can be done well: I’m a HUGE Kate Atkinson fan particularly of the Todd Family novels. Does she pull it off? Yes she does. And who hasn’t fantasized about going back to “warn” your younger self about something?Immergut wastes no time in this fast-paced novel. Immediately we meet Abby, a 46 year old career woman and artist, married to Dennis, mother of two teen-aged sons, Pete and Benjamin. In a taxi on a rainy evening, on her way home to Brooklyn from work in Manhattan, Abby suddenly sees herself at 22. She stops the cab and rushes out to watch her younger self get in that taxi with a tall young man that 46 year old Abby recalls, unlocking a buried but fuzzy memory. Along with Abby’s first person accounting, there are psychotherapy notes from the past, and emails regarding an investigation taking place in the future referring to “bizarre and deadly events”. Thus Immergut builds the story and the suspense; I couldn’t put it down.There is a sub-plot that is perhaps TOO timely; Abby becomes caught up in an Antifa group. This is an essential part of the plot, but at the moment, violent protests aren’t too palatable. (If it weren’t for 2020, I would have had to look up Antifa.)

While the voice and the premise of this novel about a middle aged woman who begins seeing a younger version of herself around New York City are intruiging, I was leaning towards 3 stars for my review because I found Abby's unexplained failure to remember certain critical moments of her past jarringly unrealistic.The ending clarifys the author's reasoning behind Abby's hazy memory in a way that is unexpected and satisfying enough that I could accept why it wasn't explained previously, so I enjoyed it more after I understood this.

This is the story of a woman meeting herself coming backwards, a phrase often used in daily life to mean you are fighting time, but in this case, Abigail really is.Her narrative which comes in the form of journal entries puts you deep inside her perspective as she encounters the younger version of herself at a time when her life is poised to implode. She has traded her art in for a safe job in illustration, her relationships with men for the safety of marriage and raising two children. As her older son becomes more socially aware and involved in a antifacist movement, threatening his entire future self, Abigail finds his journey echoed in her own as she examines her repsonsibilities to her younger self. Does she warn herself about where she is headed? Or does she let herself repeat the same steps? And what will be the results if she does?Contrasted against this are the investiagtions into what are referred to as 'the incidents of 2016', which create a sense of tension and apprehension for an event which is both in the past and forthcoming for Abigail and her younger self.Playing fast and loose with the concepts of self and time, Abigail refinds her passions as she confronts through medicaine and analysis what exactly she is experiencing. Past and present collide as the moral imperative raises itself-if you could warn, or stop, or change something by meeting your younger self, would you? Maybe your life is meant to be exactly how it is, whether you like it or not, and your only duty is to live it at its fullest.I loved the almost magic realism and dream like nature of the plot, where it takes you from being inside Abigails' conscious mind, to the doctor who is surreptiously trying to analyse her brain imagery and make sense of something her colleagues are disregarding. Abigail feels she is going mad at the same time , it awakens something in her that begins to challenge and overthrow the comfortable cocoon she has constructed around herself, to look at why she has made this a safe space and face headon, events which are deeply buried. And as she does so, her escalating sense of agaitation is reflected in the activities her son is involved in. Both find themselves increasingly out of their depths, and the consequences of chasing enlightenment by being 'seen', are not eniterly victim-less...This is a very different, very insular and thoughtful read which leaves you pondering the meaning behind the facade of what constitutes a life well lived. I finished it, and rushed to download Debra Jo's first novel,'Captives', because of how well she writes, and constructs her female characters. She nails the sense of disatisfaction with doing the done thing, as well as showing how easy it is to fall into a trap you have constructed for yourself.

Creepy (in a great way), dark and personal. Part psychological thriller (maybe), part police procedural (maybe), part love story (maybe) and part murder mystery (maybe). Like protagonist's memory, story veers from razor sharp to gloriously murky and remains vivid and unpredictable right til the very end. A real page turner, as they say. I read it in two sittings.