Book Review: In This Life Or Another by Melissa Payne

Damn Near Generational. I can think of exactly two books I've ever read that come anywhere near close to this book - one was fairly niche inside Christian circles (in that I've rarely seen anyone other than myself talking about it, even though it was transformational and foundational *for me*), the other was a book club and even, for a time, Hollywood darling. Those two books being Eli by Bill Myers, wherein the sentence level plot is "What if Jesus were born in 1970s Santa Monica?" and The Shack by William Paul Young - which in my experience was ok, but I truly never understood the hype to that one. (And which I now see is itself nearly 20 years old, making Payne's text here that much closer to truly generational.)

Now, to be crystal clear, both of those books were *solidly* within the realm of Christian (ish, in the case of Young's text) fiction... and Payne's never really mentions religion at all. In fact, the closest direct connection you get to either book above here in Payne's text is one particular concept explicitly stated in both this book and Myers' book, and it serves more as a guiding theory in each rather than something more definitive or declaratory.

Instead, what you really get here is a particularly strong variant of the "glimpse" concept, except instead of living one sequential period of the life over, Payne takes a more Myers-type approach and jumps around here and there, building mystery and tension throughout even as so very many scenes can get varying levels of dusty indeed. Yes, if you're known to cry a lot in books, you're going to want at least one box of tissues at hand here, maybe a second box. Even if you don't normally cry over books... you may well with this one. At least if you're human at all. :)

There is a *lot* of emotion here, as is typical of Payne's works, and once again she really does do a truly excellent job manipulating the reader's emotions exactly as she wants them to be manipulated as the story progresses. Indeed, this may actually be Payne's best yet - and she's had more than one that were truly, truly phenomenal works.

Now, one word of warning: If you are a reader that needs strictly linear storytelling and/ or can't handle any element of generic scifi/ mysticism/ magical reality type stuff... this book isn't going to be your thing. Both in the way the story is structured overall and in exactly how it works both structurally and inside the tale itself, there is a lot of jumping around - somewhat similar to Time Traveller's Wife, to a degree. But for those that can roll with this... it really is a truly well done tale.

Very much recommended.

This review of In This Life Or Another by Melissa Payne was originally written on October 8, 2026.