Catriona Silvey writes beautiful prose, but it’s too much effort to wade through when the conclusion is so unsatisfactory.

I have a theory about this story. Let’s call it the ‘mixed paint theory.’ Drop massive blots of paints on a canvas, then swirl them together with a brush in a massive, intertwined mess that’s completely unrecognizable. Some people call that art. Other people might recognize the plot line of Catriona Silvey’s Meet Me in Another Life, a massive mix of confused story that’s not worth the effort.

Recently, I heard the phrase “is the juice worth the squeeze?” The short answer for this story is no. No, it’s not.

Santini and Thora keep meeting each other over and over as different versions of themselves. Each chapter serves mostly as a short story, which in isolation may work for some people with a lot of time on their hands. They are lovers, siblings (meh), acquaintances, etc. If you wade through the tedium, you may recognize vague clues (read my mixed paint theory) that lead to where this story is headed—or ends up—can’t decide which.

My expectations for this story were high, which may be why I’m so annoyed about the payoff of this novel. Time travel (which this story is definitely not) and living a life again and again is a wonderful, fun experiment. The best modern example of this is Ken Grimwood’s Replay (1986) where the same life is lived again and again with decisions driving the plot and creating the consequences. In Meet Me, the decisions of the characters mean nothing. They just chat endlessly until, apparently, they run out of things to say and the pages of the book go dry and float away.

Dig deep enough, you might find meaning, but again, is the juice worth the squeeze?

2/5 stars. Pass on this one.