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The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells
The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells
The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells
Audiobook7 hours

The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells

Written by Andrew Sean Greer

Narrated by Orlagh Cassidy

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

()

About this audiobook

1985. After the death of her beloved twin brother, Felix, and the breakup with her longtime lover, Nathan, Greta Wells embarks on a radical psychiatric treatment to alleviate her suffocating depression. But the treatment has unexpected effects, and Greta finds herself transported to the lives she might have had if she'd been born in different eras.

During the course of her treatment, Greta cycles between her own time and alternate lives in 1918, where she is a bohemian adulteress, and 1941, which transforms her into a devoted mother and wife. Separated by time and social mores, Greta's three lives are remarkably similar, fraught with familiar tensions and difficult choices. Each reality has its own losses, its own rewards, and each extracts a different price. And the modern Greta learns that her alternate selves are unpredictable, driven by their own desires and needs.

As her final treatment looms, questions arise: What will happen once each Greta learns how to remain in one of the other worlds? Who will choose to stay in which life?

Magically atmospheric, achingly romantic, The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells beautifully imagines "what if" and wondrously wrestles with the impossibility of what could be.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperAudio
Release dateJun 25, 2013
ISBN9780062283511
The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells
Author

Andrew Sean Greer

Andrew Sean Greer is the bestselling author of The Story of a Marriage and The Confessions of Max Tivoli, which was a Today book club selection and received a California Book Award. He lives in San Francisco.

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Reviews for The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells

Rating: 3.77 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Colorful description and moving story. Very well narrated

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A few weeks ago I attended a lecture/discussion disguised as a religious service. The topic was free will, and the speaker, quoting Sam Harris extensively, was adamant that there was no such thing. Every decision we make, he argued (or rather, he allowed San Harris to argue for him) is 100% preordained by history, past experiences, and biochemistry.I don't care too much about whether free will actually exists or not except as it relates to how we treat those who wrong us, and in particular how our criminal justice system is organized, but I suppose it's an interesting discussion. I lean toward a hybrid view influenced by process thought ? la Alfred North Whitehead in which our experiences and our physiology and every atom in the universe at this moment and in all of history all limit the choices we have in each moment but that there still remains at least a tiny bit of choice, and that tiny bit of choice adds up over time into something resembling what we consider free will. Reading this novel, I suspect that Andrew Sean Greer---or at least Greta Wells---might have a similar view of free will.The premise of the novel was not unique. There have been many discussions about all possible realities spinning off infinitely and perhaps even more discussion about people being born into the wrong time---an innovator ahead of her time, someone with the principles of a bygone era---but this novel is an interesting narrative take on these ideas. With three Gretas navigating three different time periods with their individual experiences and acquired personality traits from their own time, the novel plays with the idea of Self and how much Self is (or isn't) distinct from our nature and our nurture. Greer adds the extra twist of Greta being able to choose which existence best suits her.This novel was a quick, enjoyable read, and one for which I was willing to spend a day homeschooling and running errands and refereeing arguments on only four hours of sleep. This is the second novel I've read in less than a month that was written by a man from a woman's perspective. I'm not opposed to this (although I am a little uncomfortable with the literary tradition of male authors speaking with the voices of women while women writers weren't being taken seriously regardless of whose voice they spoke with), nor am I opposed to women writing from a male perspective or really anyone writing from anyone's perspective, but I do wonder why Greer chose to write this novel from Greta's perspective. Couldn't a similar novel be written from, say, Felix's perspective (a little earlier in his life, of course) or from Nathan's? What makes a male writer choose to write from the point of view of a female character, especially considering the history of the practice as a sort of literary mansplaining?

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A journey into grief and mental illness.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really enjoyed this book. It was a bit confusing here and there - I had to stop and think several times about which character was in which era. However, that is a minor complaint; the story is funny, sad, bittersweet and the writing is excellent. The characters are well drawn and I especially liked the protagonist's eccentric, lovable aunt.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I wanted to like this book, but it's difficult to do so when I find the main character uninteresting and fairly unlikeable. I also got the sense that the author is in love with the sound and structure of words and sentences. In some books that can be great, but in this one I just kept thinking "oh, here he goes again, writing all these twirly sentences."

    After about 10 pages of wincing and wondering how the heck I'll get through this (it's a book club book), I gave up and downloaded a summary so at least I'll know what they're talking about at book club! Blech.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I love time travel but just couldn't get into this book.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Past and different lives and time travel seem to be "trending" but I think the penultimate was Kate Atkinson's "Life After Life". This book never grabbed me, and I found the activities of the lead characters in their three lifespans (1918, 1941, 1985)not exciting nor inspirational.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was a really interesting book - I enjoyed the premise very much. Mr. Greer's prose can be a bit flowery at times, but the book is well researched and well-written. I confess, I want to know what happens next with Greta(s), Leo, et al.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A funny combination of a very slight-feeling book and a some serious topics, mainly death, loss, and plague years (the Spanish flu in 1918, AIDS in 1985, and a bunch of young men gearing up to go off to war in 1942). Greer writes nicely, and though in the end it came off a little simple given the subject matter, it was well written and engaging—and while I haven't lived through any of the other time periods, he surely nailed the terrible feeling of devastation in downtown New York's gay community in 1985.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Psychiatric treatment, a clever mechanism to tell a time-travel tale. Reader/narrator, Orlagh Cassidy, kept me interested in the three different twentieth-century time periods and Greta's experiences when transported into and out of those eras.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Greta Wells is an unhappy woman in 1985, having been lost her brother to AIDS and get lover to another woman. Electroshock therapy has the unexpected effect of sending her by turns into two alternate worlds: in 1918, Greta's brother is lonely and closeted, and her lover is her angry, wounded husband freshly returned from war; in 1941, Greta is a housewife and mother, and her husband is loving but still unfaithful.
    Science-fiction and time-travel affects of electroshock aside, this novel was primarily a vibrant reflection on the metaphysical impact of forces beyond our cultural, the way people and events shadow us. It's hard to explain without sounding trite, but this was a dramatization of the ways in which we might be different people if our lives had unfolded differently--and so might those we love be different, too.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It was a great experience reading this book because while in the middle of reading it I got to read Andrew Sean Greer. Talking to him helped me to focus me on aspects of the book that I was not sure of. He does a great job of using time travel as a way to deal with how we make choice in this world. It goes right to the heart of how the world and how it views us impacts us depending on what era we are living in. I strongly recommend this author no matter what book by him that you read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really liked this book. Great writing and an interesting premise. Not your typical time travel book. In fact, I don't think I'd call it a "time travel" book. It made me think about how timing and circumstaces shape the people we are and how choices we make have far reaching consequences.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A sarcastic, cynical female protagonist, history, and time travel? Yes please! I jumped at this immediately when it went on sale.I have this bad habit of quickly scanning through the first few reviews on Goodreads when I first add a book. I know I shouldn’t do it, and I know I have what you could call an “easily influence-able personality”. But it’s hard to stop myself, and I did it again with this book. And reviews were mixed. And I went into the book with a heavy heart, not wanting to again be let down by a female-driven story. Especially written by a man.But I’ve just come out on the other side and I am pleased to report this book lived up to my excited expectations. It is dark and grisly, not only emotionally, but also when dealing with war and illness and death. It does a fantastic job of illustrating the different lived experiences of a woman in 1918, 1941, and 1984 and contrasting them with how Greta deals with them. Not that it’s heavy on feminist theory (you get a feeling Greta would call herself a feminist, but it’s not her focus), but due to the issues she deals with in each time period, it’s noticeable.It would be easy to say this book was written by one of those people that think “I would have rather been alive in the 20s!” and that’s where the story ends, but I think there is more to this story than that. There are nuances about twin siblings, about the AIDS epidemic, about war, about heartbreak, about friendship, about stereotypes, about choices. They are all simmering underneath. The only reason I can think that someone wouldn’t enjoy this book is because none of these things are fully realized - but I think that’s fair enough. Because these are all things Greta is dealing with and no one fully realizes anything in one calendar year of their lives (no matter the time period).Either that or they don’t like where she ended up, which is ludicrous, because she absolutely made the right choice.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    After her twin brother dies and her lover of many years abruptly leaves her, Greta Wells sinks into an unrelenting depression. Nothing she tries for it works. As a last ditch effort, she tries a series of shock treatments that have unexpected side effects: she finds herself first in 1918, then, after a second treatment, in 1941, before returning to 1985 after a third one. That she travels in time is weird enough, but in each era she is still Greta Wells, and the full cast of characters from her life is there, too: her aunt Ruth, lover Nathan, her brother Felix, Felix’s lover Alan as well as Dr. Cerletti to give her the shock treatments. Each era has differences, too; in both 1918 and 1941 Greta and Nathan are married, Felix is still alive but deeply closeted instead of living with Alan, one Greta has a child, one a lover. Yes, there are multiple Gretas- every time ‘our’ Greta changes eras, so do the other Gretas. This is not really a time travel story, because it makes no sense that the same set of people would exist in multiple times; it’s more a story of multiple universes. But that’s not the important part of the story. It’s the relationships that are important. In each era, Greta places a different relationship in the primary place. To one, it’s Nathan, To another Greta, it’s her lover. To the third, it’s brother Felix. Each Greta is dealing with loss and/or the possibility of loss; the 1918 influenza pandemic, World War 2 starting in 1941 and an auto accident, AIDS in 1985. In each era, the Gretas are trying to fix the relationships most important to them. But I had a hard time caring about Greta very much; she managed, despite her traveling in alternate worlds, to be boring. I didn’t like Nathan, who wasn’t much more than a cardboard cheater. Aunt Ruth was the most appealing but even she was sort of a generic eccentric, crazy enough to believe Greta’s tale of time travel. The book does, however, serve up a great line, uttered by Felix to a horrible rude woman: "When you were a little girl, Madam.....was this the woman you dreamed of becoming?" It’s a good question, one that propelled Greta to try and get things right in all three eras. It’s also a question we should all ask ourselves, before it’s too late to make things turn out better. I admit the ending surprised me, but that wasn’t enough to make me love the book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Andrew Sean Greer was born in November 1970, in Washington, D.C., the son of two scientists. He studied writing at Brown University, and after years in New York working as a chauffeur, television extra and unsuccessful writer, he moved to Missoula, Montana, where he received a master of fine arts degree from the University of Montana. He soon moved to Seattle, where he wrote for Nintendo and taught community college, then to San Francisco where he began to publish in magazines such as Esquire, The Paris Review, and The New Yorker before releasing a collection of his stories, How It Was for Me. The New York Times Book Review praised it, commenting that "Greer's descriptive talents are immense." His first novel, The Path of Minor Planets was a critical success. I first encountered Greer on the publication of his second novel, The Confessions of Max Tivoli. His powers of description are a wonder to behold. The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells is his fourth novel and fifth book.Greta Wells Lives in New York City in 1985. In the late fall of that year, she suffers a mental breakdown, and he physician husband recommends Dr. Cerletti, who administers a series of 25 electro convulsive therapy procedures. When she awakens from each session, she is still in her room, but the date has changed from 1985 to 1918, and after the next treatment from 1918 to 1941, then back to 1985. Although Greta refers to herself as a “time-traveler,” I think this is misleading. Since each of the three time periods she visits has the same characters, relationships, and locations, something else must be afoot. Greer grew up in a scientifically inclined family, so perhaps The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells is an attempt to demonstrate the relatively new theory of the “multi-verse” construct of the universe. As I began the novel, interest and curiosity quickly took over. Since the novel Max Tivoli is the story of a man born old, who tumbles back into his childhood, I prepared myself for a wild ride. The next chapter perplexed me however. The voice changed and the prose seemed formulaic. But I plowed on, and gradually accustomed myself to Greer’s style in his latest novel. I am glad I did. The novel grew on me, and became an interesting exploration of mistakes made and attempts to remedy those errors and alter the other two Greta’s lives into something which fir more closely their dreams.Greer still has an impressive talent for description. He writes, “I lay there for a long time trying to make sense of what I saw. Sunlight and shadow. Striped satin and lace. A piece of fabric hanging over me, dappled by the sun and leaves, billowing slightly from the open window. The sound of a steam whistle, and the clatter of hooves. Striped satin and lace; it was quite beautiful, moving in slow waves above me, just as my mind had been moving in waves as I awoke: a canopy bed. My eyes moved down to take in the rest of the room, which was lit with the same watery refracted light. My breath began to quicken. Because the bed I had fallen asleep in had no posters, no fabric. And the room I saw before me was not my room (27-28).Greta flits from one period to another trying to fix things without revealing exactly who she is. Only her best friend, her Aunt Ruth, knew the truth and told 1985 Greta the plans and activities of the 1918 and the 1941 Greta. Suddenly, I could not put ti down! And I bet you can’t either! 5 Stars--Chiron, 5/25/14
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    “The Impossible happens once to each of us.”I warn you now, I’m going to gush.The speaker of the above sentiment is the eponymous Greta Wells, the first-person narrator of Andrew Sean Greer’s fourth novel. We are introduced to her as the story opens. It’s New York City, circa 1985, the height of the AIDS crisis. She has just lost her twin brother, Felix—to whom we are introduced in a flashback that occurs not long before his death—at the age of thirty-two. Greta’s grief is almost more than she can bear. When, a few months later, her long-term relationship dissolves, it is more than she can bear. A pervading sadness leads her eventually to the door of Dr. Cerletti, who will administer a course of 25 electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) treatments over a span of 12 weeks. The doctor warns she “might experience some disorientation afterward.”What Greta experiences is more migration than disorientation. She awakens in a different time, a different life. A different Greta. After her first treatment, Greta finds herself in 1918. World War I is nearly over. Just as she finds herself inhabiting an altered version of herself there, so too she discovers alternate versions of the most important people in her life: Nathan, the lover who left her; her beloved, bohemian aunt, Ruth; and her brother, Felix. Alive. After her second ECT treatment, Greta awakens in yet another version of her life. It is 1941, and America is about to go to war. Here again are versions of those she loves and a new version of herself and the life she might have lived. So the months pass, spending a day or a week rotating through these different lives in 1985, 1918, and 1941, each with its own joys and sorrows. Because, as Greta learns, no life is perfect.That is the set-up of this moving masterpiece of a novel. Mr. Greer is rather brilliant in his choice of time periods. The beginning of a war is juxtaposed with the end of a war. The plague of AIDS is juxtaposed with the Spanish influenza of 1918. Changing social mores are examined, and our protagonist gets to explore the lives she might have known if some of her fondest wishes and greatest fears came true. Ultimately, it is up to her to decide the life she will lead, in an eerie echo of her lover’s words, “I leave it to you.” Greer writes:“A shrew, a wife, a whore. Those seemed to be my choices. I ask any man reading this, how could you decide whether to be a villain, a worker, or a plaything? A man would refuse to choose; a man would have that right. But I had only three worlds to choose from, and which of them was happiness? All I wanted was love. A simple thing, a timeless thing. When men want love they sing for it, or they smile for it, or pay for it. And what do women do? They choose. And their lives are struck like bronze medallions. So tell me, gentlemen, tell me the time and place where it was easy to be a woman?”At times, I found it difficult to believe this novel was written by a man, so convincing was the voice of his female protagonist. I’m not sure how much I related to Greta, but I believed in her—despite a premise that required significant suspension of disbelief. And I didn’t have to love her, because I fell in love with those she loved, none more so than warm and colorful Aunt Ruth, a veritable Mrs. Madrigal of a woman, complete with kimonos. And I was deeply moved by the relationship of these fraternal twins, so eloquently conveyed by the author, a twin himself.There are many echoes in this brief book. Echoes of other novels—though Greer’s tale is unique. I found myself reflecting upon stories as diverse as Ken Grimwood’s Replay, Jack Finney’s Time and Again, and even Baum’s Oz! Greta’s life had echoes of other lives, with lines of dialogue recurring like motifs in entirely different circumstances: “When you were a little girl, was this the woman you dreamed of becoming?”“I understood nothing! But it was a great show!”“If only we just loved who we’re supposed to love.”These are brief quotes, but I want to pull long passages from this novel. Greer’s prose is so beautiful it hurts. Indulge me once more:“They say there are many worlds. All around our own, packed tight as the cells of your heart. Each with its own logic, its own physics, moons, and stars. We cannot go there—we would not survive in most. But there are some, as I have seen, almost exactly like our own—like the fairy worlds my aunt used to tease us with. You make a wish, and another world is formed in which that wish comes true, though you may never see it. And in those other worlds, the places you love are there. Perhaps in one of them, all rights are wronged and life is as you wish it. So what if you found the door? And what if you had the key? Because everyone knows this:That the impossible happens once to each of us.”I was very fortunate to receive a review copy of this extraordinary novel from the publisher in late 2012. I held on to it and made it my very first read of 2013. Will it make my top 10 list for the year? Absolutely. Will it be the single best novel I read in 2013? Very likely. But more than that, this is the book I will be foisting on friends 20 years from now. My love of Greta Wells will last a lifetime.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like had I made different decisions at key points in time. There are many books that take that curiousity and use it as a plot device. But how many of them actually posit multiple universes where the same people live in vastly different time periods? A multitude of Kristens living in different historical times. This oddly intriguing idea is the premise in Andrew Sean Greer's newest novel, The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells. In 1985, Greta Wells is clinically depressed after the loss of her beloved twin brother, Felix, to AIDS; the imminent loss of Felix's partner, Alan, also to this terrible plague; and the breakup of her long time relationship with partner Nathan. She tries everything she can to overcome the depression but in the face of failure after failure finally agrees to try electroconvulsive therapy or ECT. Her doctor reassures her that there will be no side effects other than a lessening of the depression and a sleepiness. But after Greta's first procedure, she wakes up to find herself in 1918 rather than 1985. She's still Greta from 1985 though she's inhabiting Greta from 1918's body. In this universe, she's married to Nathan although he's off fighting the last days of WWI and seeing the ravages of the flu epidemic. This Greta is a lonely one who is flirting with a young actor named Leo in her husband's absence and being encouraged in this by her unconventional aunt Ruth. More importantly to Greta, in this universe, her brother Felix is still alive and engaged to a senator's daughter. 1918 Greta is undergoing psychiatric treatment too and 1985 Greta wakes up following the 1918 treatment to discover that she is now in 1941, also still Greta but in still another version of her life. She is married to Nathan in this version as well, and they have a small son named Felix, after his uncle, again still alive, who is also married with an infant. This Greta is undergoing treatment after a terrible accident that rent her world and left her grief stricken. And so with each electrical shock, these three Gretas cycle through each others' lives. The narration follows 1985 Greta throughout her cycle through the different time periods giving her more modern perspective on the lives that the other, earlier Gretas are living. As each of the Gretas are suffering, hence the need for psychiatric intervention, rather than waiting and holding on until the treatments take her back to her own time, 1985 Greta is determined to fix what she sees as being wrong in each of the others' lives. Ostensibly the other Gretas are doing the same thing so that there are three women who feel like they know what to change about the other lives they periodically lead. The greatest of these fixes is that 1985 Greta wants to tell her beloved Felix, in both 1918 and 1941, that he should live as himself, a gay man, regardless of the time period, social strictures, and danger of doing so. But she does not only interfere with Felix's life, she also makes decisions that reverberate with profound results through the other Gretas' lives as well. Greer's vision of multiple concurrent universes is an interesting one. Each of the characters maintains a similar core being in each universe although the ways in which they interact with their society differs and does forge differences in them from one time to another. In essence, they are each many versions of the same person and that makes their choices in each time period fascinating. 1985 Greta is clearly searching for the things that are most important to her as she lives these other lives. Having a more modern character dropped into historical situations allows Greer to not have to focus on anachronistic behavior, because of course she'd act anachronistically. Each era is well written and despite Greta's desire to impose her modern ideas on the people around her in each one, Greer has presented the reality and the social mores of each time quite well. The choice of these particular time periods and the parallels between them are also nicely echoed in the different and yet still recognizable lives of each Greta. The novel is filled with longing on the part of each of the different Gretas and it is very reflective in nature as 1985 Greta seeks to understand and improve her life as well as her alter egos' lives. But the perspective of the other Gretas, aside from small statements made by her colorful Aunt Ruth to the modern Greta each time she returns to her own time, is completely missing from the novel. It would have been fascinating to see the differences in her character wrought by the time periods in which they lived although that inclusion, would, of course, have made this a very different novel. As 1985 Greta becomes more accustomed to the other historical time periods of her life, her impact on each during her visits becomes more involved and intentional. The cyclical nature of the novel keeps the reader turning pages to see how everything is going to play out but there are moments where the pacing stretches like taffy with the reader ready to move on and the character still reflecting. In general though, this is a considered look at the nature of time, fulfillment, and love seen through a unique and creative lens.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was a well written book on an interesting look at the subject of time travel. It took a bit to get use to the rhythm of the story but once it was established it flowed nicely. This wasn't a book that I had to stay up late trying to finish but neither did I avoid it. I enjoyed the time spent reading and would recommend it to somebody who likes life stories and emotions. It is definitely not a thriller or true romance but it was a pleasing story.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The right book at the right time.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I generally love time travel literature, especially if it's well-written. I had heard a lot of great things about this book. I really wanted to like it but to be honest, by about half way through, I began to find the jumping around a bit *bumpy*. I found that either my own mind was wandering and I couldn't keep details straight, or maybe there were just holes in the action. Some things didn't make sense to me, and there came a point when I stopped caring. Oh well...
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    i loved every minute of it and couldn't put it down. Two phrases that stood out were "no ordinary life" and "first love."
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    'The impossible happens once to each of us.'Greta Wells is devastated after losing her twin brother Felix to AIDS and after her long term partner Nathan also leaves her. Burdened by a deep depression that is slowly getting the better of her, she takes the advice of her Aunt Ruth and visists a doctor who recommends electroconvulsive therapy. Ironically, right before her first session she considers, "How I longed to live in any time but this one. It seemed cursed with sorrow and death." The night following her first session she goes to sleep in 1985 and arises the next day in 1918. She wakes up as herself just under slightly different circumstances: her brother is alive and she is married to Nathan but is in love with a younger man named Leo. She discovers that her 1918 self is also undergoing electroconvulsive therapy and again, the night following her session she arises the next day in another time; this time in 1941. The cycle continues: 1985, 1918, 1941 and so on for 25 treatments."You’re all the same, you’re all Greta. You’re all trying to make things better, whatever that means to you. For you, it’s Felix you want to save. For another, it’s Nathan. For this one, it’s Leo she wants to resurrect. I understand. Don’t we all have someone we’d like to save from the wreckage?"This is a time travel story, yet it's not really. It touches on the possibilities of past lives and how your actions resonate to future lives and reincarnations of a sort. Because while 1985 Greta is traveling to her past selves, these individuals she's 'taking over' for are also on the same adventure and they're all trying to correct past mistakes and secure their own happiness. "Is there any greater pain to know what could be, and yet be powerless to make it be?"The heart of the story is of course Greta, her lives, and the individuals she loves in these lives. It's a tale of romance and how each Greta found (and loved) Nathan but after experiencing each of these lives a wrench gets thrown into the works as she is forced to consider the possibility that he is not her one true love, that she's been blinded into repetition and is only resorting to what she knows.While each life could easily showcase the historical detailing of the time, this is glazed over. In 1918, we have the flu epidemic and World War I is ending. In 1941, World War II is beginning. In 1985, we have the AIDS epidemic. While living in these time periods, Greta maintains a certain absence as if she's truly just a visitor and isn't quite experiencing the moments around her. For someone who said, "...not all lives are equal, that the time we live in affects the person we are, more than I had ever though" I really wished to see the transformation of her character due to her environment and the impacts her surroundings had on her as a person.The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells is treated as a serious tale of time travel yet is rife with flaws in its design. A definite suspension of disbelief is required because of how truly 'Impossible' the story is. Despite this (and the crazy unraveling that occurred at the end), it all managed to still work. It would be easy to nitpick it to death but in all actuality, time travel is not an exact science and different variations are definitely possible and this was quite an original interpretation of it. The story of Greta Wells is an imaginative tale about past lives and the implausible impossibility of "what if".
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This very readable novel explore how one would live a different but similar life in a different time and how a glimpse of that experience would change one's current life. The time travel, though treated as an actual result of shock therapy, seems more a construct for examining the variety of possibilities inherent in one's current life.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the premise behind it. Imagine having more than one choice for the life you want to live, all with different challenges jos and sorrows
    Then to be able to choose which suits your strengths and your needs while knowing what you're scraficing to choose that life.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    So often, stories about time travel are all about the “What if?” and the many ways that people try and change events both past and present. Those are fascinating to me, and I enjoy all of the different possibilities. But in “The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells”, the author looks more at the different possibilities that arise in personality and temperament than in events. This proves, fascinating as well, and makes for a remarkable story about love and human emotion – and how each can be altered so much by the times and circumstances in which we live.Greta Wells is deeply depressed, mourning the loss of her twin brother. She is unable to see a way forward in her life, unable to imagine what of her is left with the losses she has suffered. She is unable to draw enough of her own will, her own being, if you will, to make a life for herself. And so, through a series of treatments, this woman of 1985, AIDS epidemic New York, finds herself thrown into other versions of her. One in 1918, one in 1941. Both similar to her in family members, lovers, lifestyle…but utterly different at the same time. Given this escape from her current life, she (and the other Greta’s) learns a great deal about who they are and who they could be.The writing is very well done and each era comes across very distinctly and very well drawn. As great reacts with a lover as the 1918 version of herself: “And he did not move, just stared at me, his eyes taking in each aspect of me, one by one, both hands and arms, every part of my face and hair. There was no part of me he was not seeing, now. I smiled, but he did not smile. Leo just stood there and took me in. Who knows what battle raged inside him? It went on, in outward silence, for only a few seconds, but I’m sure it was a long struggle as he inventoried the woman he loved, the bits of her he could not live without, the words she said, the promises and lies and truths, the hope she gave him before one side won at last.”As Greta cycles through each of these time periods, she gains and loses those she loves. She learns more about them and more about herself. She has to make choices that she knows will affect not only her own life, but so many other lives. Her actions or inactions will cause a great ripple, and she grows to understand the impact of each of her decisions. Throughout the story, she knows that her time is limited in these worlds, and that there will be a final choice to be made. Some things she and the other Greta’s will be forced to give up, forced to endure once the cycle is over.“Is it better to hear of death or witness it? For I had suffered both and could not tell you. To have a person vanish in your arms is too real for life, a blow to the bones, but to hear of it is to be utterly blind: reaching, stumbling about, hoping to touch the truth. Impossible, unbearable, what life has planned for each of us.”This was a wonderful book – one that examines the heart of a woman and how who she is can be defined not only by the choices she makes, but by those she loves and those who love her. Once her choice is made, she asks, “For is my story really so unusual? To wake each morning as if things had gone differently – the dead come back, the lost returned, the beloved in our arms – is it any more magic than the ordinary madness of hope?”I loved that phrase – “the ordinary madness of hope”. In the darkest of hours, it is that madness we feel as we wish fervently to change our lives or ourselves…but so rarely can we do so. This book gives the reader a brief glimpse of one woman who was able to do so – in an otherworldly and beautiful way.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Another time travel novel. In this novel time travel is induced by electroshock treatments which lead the protagonist to repeated visits to parallel lives. Bland.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really enjoyed this book. It was a bit confusing here and there - I had to stop and think several times about which character was in which era. However, that is a minor complaint; the story is funny, sad, bittersweet and the writing is excellent. The characters are well drawn and I especially liked the protagonist's eccentric, lovable aunt.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer
    289 pages

    ★★★

    Greta lives in 1985 and is incredibly depressed about her life, the hope that electroshock therapy will fix her is a last ditch effort that instead sends her to two earlier times (1918 and 1941) as similar but different Gretas. The time change gives it the feel of time travel while the jumping into similar lives with little differences here and there is the feel of parallel universes. These new lives will hand her obstacles and how she handles them is the question, along with where she choose to stay in the end?

    I liked this book but I can’t say I loved it. Perhaps my expectations were just too high after seeing many great reviews. Something just seemed to be missing for me when reading this. The premise was an interesting one but fell short somewhere in there for me. I wasn’t overly fond of any of the characters, including the main character of Greta (not all male authors can write good female characters). The people within the book seemed a little flat to me. I know the whole point was the changes that were made throughout the times but I had trouble really getting into those changes, I just wanted to yell “live the life you have and stop meddling to make others the way you want it!” but alas there wouldn’t be much of a book in that case. I did enjoy it, it kept my attention, it was a quick read and it even managed to get me out of my reading slump but I just didn’t like it as much as I had hoped.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I found this book to be entertaining and interesting but not one to read with distractions. I really had to keep my mind in this one to keep up with everything going on. It is worth the time and it gives you things to ponder but might put some readers off by the switching back and forth in time.