Synopsis
From the critically acclaimed, bestselling author of The Cartographers and The Book of M comes an inventive new novel about a woman who wins the chance to rewrite every mistake she’s ever made… and how far she’ll go to find her elusive “happily ever after.” But there’s a twist: the reader gets to decide what she does next to change her fate.
One woman. Endless options. Every choice has consequences.
Meek, play-it-safe Marsh has just turned forty-five, and her life is in shambles. Her career is stagnant, her marriage has imploded, and her teenage daughter grows more distant by the day. Marsh is convinced she’s missed her chance at everything—romance, professional fulfillment, and adventure—and is desperate for a do-over.
She can’t believe her luck when she’s selected to be the star of the global sensation All This and More, a show that uses quantum technology to allow contestants the chance to revise their pasts and change their present lives. It’s Marsh’s only shot to seize her dreams, and she’s determined to get it right this time.
But even as she rises to become a famous lawyer, gets back together with her high school sweetheart, and travels the world, she begins to worry that All This and More’s promises might be too good to be true. Because while the technology is amazing, something seems a bit off.…
Can Marsh really make her life everything she wants it to be? And is it worth it?
Perfect for fans of Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library and Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, bestselling author Peng Shepherd’s All This and More is an utterly original, startlingly poignant novel that puts the reader in the driver’s seat.
Review
All This And More is the perfect title for this book, because it doesn’t just deliver on the promise of its potential, it gives you so much more than you could expect or imagine. It’s equal parts a choose-your-own adventure story, a sci-fi thriller, a speculative romp that makes you ponder the complexity of choice itself, a unique take on a love triangle, and an in-depth character study of a woman whose life has passed her by. I don’t know how Peng Shepherd has pulled it off!
Let’s start with the format. The book follows the progress of a reality TV show that’s taken the world by storm. The show is called All This And More, and it gives one lucky contestant (a forty-something woman named Marsh) the chance to rewrite her life—undo her mistakes and choose a different path. What’s brilliant about this format is that the book is structured into the ten episodes of the TV show, which allows for changes to be made to Marsh’s life without things getting confusing or muddled. At no point does the story become a victim of its own cleverness or stray into the realms of exposition-babble, and it remains accessible and a joy to read from start to finish.
The second layer to it is that, like Marsh, you also get to choose what changes are made to the story, as there’s a choose-your-own adventure element that keeps everything exciting and fresh. If you’ve never read this style of book before, don’t panic—it’s very clear how it works, and you won’t have a problem following the stepping stones to get you through the ten episodes. In fact, there’s a lot of fun to be had if you do go wrong, as you’ll encounter playful pages to get you back on track, so even if you turn a wrong page, it remains a delight.
One thing you may be wondering is, “Does it matter what path I take through the book? Isn’t it all going to end up the same at the end?” And the answer is that your choices definitely matter, especially in the second half of the story. The first half lays a rough foundation that’s fairly similar across the board, but from the special mid-season episode, paths diverge dramatically. Story beats are wrapped and unwrapped in such a wild variety that you’ll either see Marsh as a girl who ran away to the circus, or as an intrepid astronaut traversing the boundaries of space, depending on what you pick. Repeated read-throughs will give you a completely different take on the story, and there’s an increasing sense of stakes as the divergence intensifies the further towards the climax you progress. You’ll feel like you might be missing out on fantastic storylines the more that Marsh’s time is running out, and this really helps to authentically put you in her shoes.
The other advantage of structuring the story in this way is that, if you choose a path and you don’t like the direction it’s going, you can just go back to your previous choice and try something different! In this way, you don’t feel like you’re reading the book, you feel like you’re exploring it. And it’s genius. It doesn’t feel like a gimmick, and it’s so refreshing to see this format for a grown up, adult book.
Above all, this story is fun. It’s written in such a hopeful way. And yet, it examines a concept that contains sadness and regret and grief. Why would you want to change your life, unless you weren’t happy with it? However, you don’t feel a sense of melancholy about the way it’s written. I’m at a loss to explain how it manages to be a philosophical musing on the nature of discontent, while at the same time, be an absolute blast and total pleasure to read!
The characters are extremely relatable. Marsh, in particular. She’s front and centre of the whole thing, and deservedly so. I couldn’t stop rooting for her, even if I’d wanted to. She’s thrown into the show’s third season with a failed marriage and a new romance that she senses is about to come to an end, thanks to a faux pas on her part. So there’s a lot for her to play for, and plenty she wants to change. But the decisions over her old love and her new flame begin to unravel secrets that the show is hiding, and you’ll relish trying to sniff out the clues and solve the underlying mystery.
Let’s face it, Peng Shepherd is a master when it comes to weaving mysteries into her books. The Future Library and The Cartographers showed how she can hide twists in plain sight and play with conventions when it comes to storytelling. This has never been more apparent than in All This And More. Under the pizzazz and showmanship, there’s a thread of suspense that will keep you wanting to turn the page, and it’s concealed fantastically. For a concept that’s so over-the-top, a tremendous amount of subtlety is on display. It makes for taut and riveting sci-fi, pulling you deeper and deeper into a breathtaking plot.
As far as endings go, you’ll have three to choose from. But whatever you choose, you’ll come away with the same feeling—that there are pros and cons with every choice. We don’t get a chance to edit the decisions we make. We’re all living a first draft, and it’s messy and it’s scrappy and we make mistakes—but that’s okay. You’ll feel uplifted, encouraged, and renewed by the time you turn the final page. It’ll give you a hard reset to the way you view the present, which is so apt, as that’s the very thing that Marsh is craving!
All This And More is a spell-binding masterpiece. It amazed me by pulling off a kind of literary magic that I’ve never experienced before. There might be other books that explore the same kinds of themes, but you won’t find another that does it quite like this. Reading it is a totally unique experience, and one of those rare times when you encounter something genuinely new.
If you take each strand of Marsh’s path through the novel in isolation, time after time you’ll find a satisfying thriller that’ll hit you in the heart. But if you take the whole thing together, and look at every strand alongside each other, you’ll get a wonderfully rich take on the dichotomy of decision-making that’s dripping in poignancy. Whatever way you choose to open yourself up to this absolute masterwork, you’re sure to experience an adventure like no other, as you turn the page to discover all this…
…and more!
Releasing on 9th July 2024
Published by Harper Collins
Leave a Reply