Monday Giveaway: Ellen Meister's The Other Life (Optioned by HBO as Upcoming Series)

I, like many other Americans, love me some Sunday night HBO. This is the night that begat Sex and the City, The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, and many more favorites. When a book has been optioned by HBO, you know that a) it must be pretty good and b) it must get all kinds of crazy at some point. In this case, yes, it is; and yes, it does.

Ellen Meister's The Other Life is a little bit like The Time Traveler's Wife, but without most of the lovey-dovey moments. In fact, Meister's form of time-and-space travel is not so much time travel as it is parallel universe travel. That's right -- I said "parallel universe."

Before you instantaneously tune out and click over to another website, hear me out. You'll hear the whole story tomorrow, when I post my review, but suffice it to say: this gal (not a sci-fi/ fantasy fan) loved this book. Like, read-it-on-the-elliptical-at-the-gym loved it. And that is not easy. It may look easy, but sweating it out while balancing a book on a half-inch shelf is not simple. It takes enormous balancing and holding skills. It takes want-to (as in, you really have to want to read that book in order to do it).

Berkley Trade, a division of Penguin, is offering readers of the blog a chance to win a copy of Meister's The Other Life. In the novel, protagonist Quinn Braverman faces multiple life-altering choices. A quick look at the book from the author's website:

Quinn Braverman is keeping two secrets from her loving husband, Lewis. One is that the real reason she chose him over Eugene, her neurotic, semi-famous ex-boyfriend, was to prove to her mother that she could have a happy, stable relationship with the guy next door.

The other is that Quinn knows another life exists in which she made the other choice and stayed with Eugene. The two lives run in parallel lines, like highways on opposite sides of a mountain. There, on the other side, the Quinn who stayed with Eugene is speeding through her high-drama, childless life in Manhattan. Here, the Quinn who married Lewis lives in the suburbs, drives a Volvo, and has an adorable young son with another baby on the way.

But the important part of the secret—the part that terrifies and thrills her—is that she knows it's possible to cross from one life to the other.

That does have the ring of an HBO series, doesn't it?
 
In order to enter the contest to win a copy of The Other Life, fill out the form below. In addition to the usual name, email, and address questions, I'm also asking you to weigh in on the book's theme. Obviously, parallel universes aren't reality. But what if they were? What would you choose? The life you're living, or one you regret giving up? Tell me about your life choice, and I may share it on the blog when I announce the winner.