The Life Impossible
A Novel
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3.7 • 46 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
New York Times Bestseller
The remarkable new novel from Matt Haig, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Midnight Library, which has sold more than nine million copies worldwide
“What looks like magic is simply a part of life we don’t understand yet . . . ”
When retired math teacher Grace Winters inherits a run-down house on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza from a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. Grace arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.
Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have possibly dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.
Filled with wonder and wild adventure, this is a story of hope and the life-changing power of a new beginning.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Haig's magnificent latest (after The Midnight Library), a retired math teacher unexpectedly inherits property in Ibiza and escapes her static life in Lincolnshire, England. Upon hearing the news, widowed Grace Winters takes up residence in the ramshackle house left to her by her old friend Christina. In a note, Christina suggests Grace find a man called Alberto to show her the miraculous seagrass meadow beneath the Mediterranean. Grace, who doesn't know how Christina died, determines to follow her late friend's advice but is unable to appreciate the island's scenery due to her guilt over her 11-year-old son's death in a bicycle accident 30 years earlier. Her mood changes, though, when Alberto takes her scuba diving and she's touched underwater by a shape-shifting blue light, which Alberto calls La Presencia and claims is a portal to another planet. Her encounter with the light also gives her mind-reading and telekinetic powers, which she first tries out in quotidian situations, often to humorous effect, such as when she makes an obnoxious restaurant patron stab himself with a fork. Soon, though, she applies her newfound abilities to a higher purpose, joining a battle to save the island from an unscrupulous developer. Haig's spellbinding descriptions of the portal and its powers lend themselves to the convincing conceit that Grace, thanks to her encounter with La Presencia, is not only able to change her life but to make a difference in her new community. In Haig's sure hands, magic comes to breathtaking life.
Customer Reviews
Amazing
Made me cry. Such a beautiful, deep, whimsical book. Highly recommend. Felt like Tom Robbins but more grounded.
As always mesmerizing
As I just have finished reading this book. Being in a place of feeling stuck. This book enlightened and shows the beauty of this world and how it should be cherished. Thank you Matt Haig, for always capturing life’s essence so well.