Someone Else's Life

· Sold by Delacorte Press
4.8
11 reviews
Ebook
512
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

When 17-year-old Rosie's mother, Trudie, dies from Huntington's Disease, her pain is intensified by the knowledge that she has a fifty percent chance of inheriting the crippling disease herself. Only when Rosie tells her mother's best friend, "Aunt Sarah," that she is going to test for the disease does Sarah, a midwife, reveal that Trudie wasn't her real mother after all. Rosie was swapped at birth with a sickly baby who was destined to die.
Devastated, Rosie decides to trace her real mother, joining her ex-boyfriend on his gap year travels, to find her birth mother in California. But all does not go as planned. As Rosie discovers yet more of her family's deeply buried secrets and lies, she is left with an agonizing decision of her own, one which will be the most heart breaking and far-reaching of all.

Ratings and reviews

4.8
11 reviews
A Google user
March 1, 2012
Ms. Dale sure knows how to write. The beginning (and really all throughout the book) she conveys such heart wrenching emotions through her characters, she also does well at the highs, and capturing the true essence of teenage emotions, from one extreme to the other then back again in a new york minute. The emotions really came alive to me with her vivid descriptions. The jumps in narration was a little confusing for me at first, and then I totally got it, and it was a masterpiece! I love the generational struggles and how they transcend time, she did a really good job with that. I also had a hard time getting a grasp on Rosie at first, one minute strong and standing up for herself and then the next doing things that seem extreme like being all over a random guy, but I guess that grief, especially raw and fresh grief will do that to you. All in all, I think that her character ressonated with me more than Holly's because she came across as selfish. I tried to remind myself all she faced and the fact that she is just a teenager, but I never really could bring myself to like her much until the end. This was a hard book to read in that I have no clue what I would do if I were in Rosie or Holly's shoes (or even Kitty at first for that matter.) With the Huntington's hold and the cycle of choices and possibilities, and then the whole family situation to deal with--on top of Holly's other secret, I just can't imagine. I really liked the adults in this book--Trudie was so strong, and through Nana we can see she had such a positive attitude even in the face of such a horrible disease, and Nana herself is awesome--she reminds me of my own grandma in some ways and that is high praise. Jack is so strong and such a great dad. I can't say alot more without spoilers. Review from Blkosiner's Book Blog
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A Google user
November 27, 2016
It puts you on the edge of your seat but u also have mixed emotions like passionate love, delighted, melancholy, enrage.
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Charity Bradley
November 15, 2014
This book is amazing it is my favorite I have been searching for it.
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About the author

KATIE DALE studied English literature at Sheffield University, spending a year at the Univeristy of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, followed by a year at drama school, a national Shakespeare tour, and eight months backpacking through Southeast Asia.

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