Our Lives in Between by Billie Kowalewski
“My world is your world – only you can’t remember any of it. A barrier exists between what you think is real and what you know to be. It had been put in place during the transition into the world you currently know and will be removed upon your return. In other words, this is not your real life.”
“Huh,” I said to myself when reading the first lines of Billie Kowalewski’s ambitious, creative and thought-provoking YA novel Our Lives in Between: Book 1 of The Enlightened Series. But as one turns the pages, “huh” gradually changes to “aha” as Kowalewski sprinkles morsels of information, through her narrator Harmony, allowing readers to piece together a fascinating plot, a protagonist you care about, some heady theories and philosophies for the YA mind, and enough futuristic adventure and intrigue to keep readers glued.
The main characters, Harmony included, live in a world that uses individuals’ trips to Earth as a means to educate its inhabitants. They are transported to Earth to experience and learn, each time showing up as a different person in a different place and a different time period. Other so-called souls show up in these worlds in roles of their own, often essential to Harmony’s storyline. While they are there, they have no memory of their home world and existence, and upon their return they attend classes to basically download their experiences and see what life lessons – or traumas – they have confronted.
For example, on some of her trips to Earth, Harmony has taken on the persona of Veronica in 1980 Connecticut, Sarah in 1875 Georgia and Rachel somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean in 1914 – all with completely different scripts.
When Harmony is transported back to her home, she comes to realize that many of her lives on Earth have been cut short for various reasons.
“It’s a unique feeling, being on this end of this odd little situation,” she says. “I had been shoved out a second-story window, and then was lucky enough to snap my neck and be trampled by a horse I had spooked once when I hit the ground. In the next life, I rolled onto a very highly active beehive and then stung to death…then shoved off a train platform into the path of an oncoming train.”
A WONDERFUL ADVENTURE
What does it all mean? Is there significance or danger in this pattern?
The characters in Our Lives in Between are referred to as souls, and Harmony manages to find romance and her soulmate in Kaleb. One of the central themes in the book is understanding relationships – and their difference on Earth and in her home world. As she explains about Earth, “Trusting in another is one of life’s hardest lessons. Relationships play a role in helping us learn about ourselves. Falling in love can be so easy, but we are never truly sure about our other half at times.”
Then there is the matter of some souls in her world wanting to end the Earth project altogether. Harmony is called upon by her “masters” to write a book about Earth and its teachings as a way to convince the dissenters to back off.
Just like the characters (souls) in Kowalewski’s story often doubt themselves and search for the truth, I hope I have conveyed the truth about Our Lives in Between. But I have my own doubts, because this is a book of great merit, imagination, enterprise and storytelling and deserves much praise. There is so much to unpack about human nature, discovering who we are and what shapes us, and peer influences on which our narratives turn.
What’s more, readers are treated to a wonderful adventure – and it’s not by chance that the author conveniently leaves some loose threads in anticipation of Book 2.
For a terrific story geared for 12-to-18-year-olds but truly enjoyable by all ages, pick up Our Lives in Between. You’ll learn a thing about learning itself and some stark realities about the good, bad and complicated about our world.
As one soul says, “We all know how Earth gets.”
AUTHOR
Billie Kowalewski started writing in 2010. She’s always had a wild imagination and spent her childhood dreaming up stories. She grew up in a small town along the Connecticut shoreline. She enjoys listening to pretty much anything that rocks, like 80’s hair bands, metal, etc. She also has a gift for finding the strangest movies and shows ever (according to her children) and loves spending time with her family. Visit www.billiekowalewski.com.
