Jayme's Reviews > Here One Moment

3.5 ⭐️

The book opens with an epigraph: “I have noticed that even people who claim everything is predestined and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road” Stephen Hawking

After a short delay, and a quick snack service-a series of call buttons will summon the flight attendants on the short Sydney-Hobart flight.

Apparently, an unremarkable woman who nobody noticed upon boarding, has stood up, and while in an almost trance-like state, has started to make her way through the cabin, predicting the “cause of death” and “age of death” for all of the passengers on board.

“FATE WON’T BE FOUGHT!”

The plane will land safely, but everyone on board will be forever changed-especially the six passengers whose predicted deaths loom in the VERY near future.

A few months later, one passenger dies exactly as the woman had predicted, and when that death is followed by another, the passengers who were on board that flight, begin to worry.-What if she is right?

The book opens with witty musings about human behavior in airports, and on airplanes, (all spot on!) as we get to know our passengers before boarding and on the flight, written in the third person POV, with alternating chapters from the first person POV of our “death lady”, Cherry.

I was initially engaged but by 25%, it started to seem more like rambling as we learned about how each of the passengers felt after the flight.

With 400 pages to go-I wasn’t sure if I wanted to continue!

Which passengers would brush off the predictions as nonsense, and which passengers would try to thwart fate??

Finally, at around the 50%, mark-when the first prediction comes true, I became more invested again, as I had now grown fond of a few of the characters: particularly Allegra and her mom, Leo and Neve, and Sue and Max.

I continued reading, worried about their fate.

BUT-I found myself wanting to skim through Cherry’s chapters.

I didn’t feel like we needed to hear from her AS often as we did, nor did we need to hear AS much of her back story. Cutting SOME of these chapters would have trimmed enough of the 512 pages to offer us a quicker pace.

How much reviewers are enjoying this seems to correlate with how much Cherry’s chapters resonate. I preferred the chapters which focused on those who RECEIVED her predictions.

We learned of some surprising connections by the end of the book, and there were some satisfying and heartwarming conclusions for a few of the character ARCs, leaving me conflicted on how to rate this book.

While I LOVED how the story ultimately came together by the denouement, I cannot ignore the fact that at one point I questioned continuing on and that I felt compelled to skim read Cherry’s chapters, so 3.5 ⭐️ feels about right.

A buddy read! Was it a 5 star read for DeAnn? Be sure to watch for her review!

Expected Publication Date: September 10, 2024

Thank You to Crown for the gifted ARC provided through NetGalley. These are my candid thoughts!