Title: On the Other Side

Author: Adria Sanders

Genre: Romance

 

On the Other Side by Adria Sanders is a timeless love story between Ana and Rico during the early twentieth century in Cuba. With very different backgrounds, Ana and Rico must work together to overcome much opposition, oppression, and misunderstanding from those around them and even between themselves. Ultimately, theirs is a love story that transcends time, as it is mixed with past life memories and dreams.

On the Other Side is a unique story. Adria Sanders explains in an author’s note at the beginning of the novel that Ana and Rico’s story came to life for her through lucid dreams she had. Working with past-life regression, she believes Ana is a past life of hers and felt her story needed to be told. Whether the reader believes in past lives or not, On the Other Side can still be enjoyed for the rich narrative it weaves through intimate first-person point of view and intense feelings between the main characters.

The book is written in a stream-of-consciousness narrative. It almost reads like a private journal or diary. While this up-close and personal look into Ana’s mind and feelings can evoke deep emotions in the reader, the stylistic form of the writing is confusing at times. The sentences are often very short and may not even be fully formed thoughts, sometimes split into two or more fragments.

Given a few pages into the narrative, the reader can learn to understand how the story is being told and usually follow the events without a problem as they unfold, but the author’s choice of style may need a second read through in certain areas to better comprehend what she is trying to convey.

The ethereal feeling the reader may experience at times, however, is reminiscent of the author’s dreams that inspired the tale in the first place, so it is understandable that Sanders chose to tell the story in this format.

Ana is a young Cuban woman with mixed heritage who never knew her mother, which lends well to her questioning her own identity in the world and in matters of the heart as she comes of age. When she sees another woman receiving her father’s attention, for example, she feels betrayed, because she always expected her father to hold onto his love for his late wife, which trickles down to Ana’s fierce protectiveness of her father.

Because of the lack of a maternal figure, Ana clings to her housekeeper, Ama, who is a loving older woman, yet as Ana goes out into the world and starts her life with Rico, who is from the British aristocracy, and she soon discovers the complexity of the endurance of love in marriage: the ups and the downs, their backgrounds and how that affects them, and the opinions of those around them.

Ultimately, On the Other Side is a fascinating, deep dive into the transcendent nature of abiding love. For readers who enjoy romance, Sanders’s novel is a new twist on the genre that is sure to leave an impression long after the last page. On the Other Side shows the human psyche, on the other side of what we portray outwardly, and it doesn’t shy away from exploring all it means for us to be human.

 

 

This Editorial Review was written by the Book Review Directory staff. To receive a similarly honest, professional review for one of your own books, click here.