Paige Harbison’s adult debut, The Other Side of Now, is a mesmerizing exploration of what might have been, wrapped in the gossamer threads of magical realism and bound together with achingly human emotion. This ambitious novel tackles the universal question that haunts us all: what if we could undo our greatest regrets?
Meg Bryan, known to the world as soap opera star Lana Lord, appears to have everything—fame, fortune, and a Hollywood heartthrob boyfriend. But beneath the carefully constructed facade lies a woman drowning in grief and guilt over her best friend Aimee’s death a decade earlier. When Meg’s thirtieth birthday party becomes a public meltdown, she flees to Ireland, specifically to the quaint village of Avalon where she and Aimee once dreamed of living together.
The Magic in the Mundane
What happens next defies explanation yet feels utterly believable within Harbison’s skillfully crafted world. Meg awakens to find herself in an alternate reality—one where her nose is unaltered, her hair its natural color, and most importantly, where Aimee is alive. This isn’t the Ireland of her celebrity vacation but a parallel universe where she’s lived as Meg Bryan, working retail and dating the devastatingly attractive local bartender, Cillian.
Harbison’s approach to magical realism feels refreshingly grounded. Rather than overwhelming readers with fantastical explanations, she allows the quantum slide to simply be, focusing instead on the emotional archaeology that follows. The author’s background in screenwriting for television becomes apparent in her mastery of pacing and her ability to balance multiple narrative threads without losing the central emotional core.
The Ireland setting is rendered with authentic detail that goes beyond mere stage dressing. From the cozy pub atmosphere of Cairdeas to the fairy lights strung throughout Meg’s cottage, Harbison creates a world that feels lived-in and real. Her descriptions of Irish culture, from the musical sessions to the easy camaraderie of village life, demonstrate careful research and genuine affection for the setting.
Character Development That Resonates
The heart of this novel lies in its character work, particularly the complex relationship between Meg and Aimee. In the alternate reality, Aimee wants nothing to do with Meg, revealing that their friendship’s fracture was more complicated than mere tragedy. Harbison expertly peels back the layers of their relationship, showing how two people can love each other deeply while still causing profound hurt.
Meg’s character arc is particularly compelling. She begins as a woman who has achieved external success while remaining internally fragmented, using fame as both armor and prison. Her journey through the alternate reality forces her to confront not just her guilt over Aimee’s death, but her own complicity in the deterioration of their friendship. The revelation that Aimee had been accepted to acting school but chose to lie about it rather than hurt Meg adds layers of complexity that elevate this beyond simple wish-fulfillment fantasy.
Cillian serves as more than just a romantic interest; he’s a mirror reflecting the person Meg could have been without the trauma and fame. Their chemistry crackles on the page, but Harbison wisely avoids making their relationship the primary focus. Instead, it becomes another lens through which Meg examines her choices and possibilities.
Themes That Cut Deep
“The Other Side of Now” grapples with weighty themes—grief, forgiveness, the weight of success, and the courage required to live authentically. Harbison explores how trauma can freeze us in time, preventing growth and genuine connection. Meg’s Hollywood life, while glamorous, is revealed as a form of emotional paralysis, a way of avoiding the work of healing.
The friendship between Meg and Aimee is portrayed with remarkable nuance. Their teenage bond, shown through playful videos and shared dreams, feels genuinely warm and authentic. The slow revelation of how their relationship soured—through jealousy, miscommunication, and the pressures of diverging paths—rings painfully true to anyone who has lost a close friendship.
The theme of identity runs particularly deep throughout the narrative. In the alternate reality, Meg must reconcile who she is with who she might have been, ultimately learning that neither version is complete without the other. The novel suggests that we need all our potential lives—the triumphs and failures, the paths taken and untaken—to become fully ourselves.
Structural Strengths and Minor Stumbles
Harbison demonstrates impressive structural control in The Other Side of Now, weaving together multiple timelines and realities without losing narrative coherence. The pacing builds naturally toward the climactic theatrical performance, where Meg and Aimee finally confront their shared past through art.
The play-within-a-book device works particularly well, serving as both plot mechanism and metaphor. The two-character drama about friends reuniting at their high school reunion mirrors and amplifies the central relationship, providing a stage for reconciliation that feels both theatrical and deeply personal.
However, some elements feel slightly underdeveloped. The mechanics of the quantum slide, while not requiring extensive explanation, might have benefited from a bit more exploration. Additionally, certain supporting characters, particularly in Meg’s Hollywood life, occasionally feel more like plot devices than fully realized people.
The novel’s treatment of celebrity culture, while generally sharp, sometimes veers toward the superficial. Harbison captures the isolation and artificiality of fame effectively, but deeper exploration of the industry’s impact on artistic integrity and personal relationships would have strengthened these sections.
A Writer’s Evolution
Coming from young adult fiction (Here Lies Bridget, New Girl, Anything to Have You), Harbison demonstrates remarkable growth in her adult debut, The Other Side of Now. Her prose has matured considerably, showing greater emotional sophistication and structural complexity while retaining the accessible voice that made her YA work compelling.
The dialogue feels natural and unforced, particularly in the Irish sections where Harbison captures the rhythm and warmth of the local speech patterns without resorting to caricature. Her ability to write believable friendship dynamics transfers beautifully from her YA work, adding authenticity to the central relationship.
Comparative Literature and Influences
Readers of Rebecca Serle’s Expiration Dates and Taylor Jenkins Reid’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo will find familiar territory here with The Other Side of Now, though Harbison brings her own unique voice to the speculative women’s fiction genre. The novel shares DNA with films like Sliding Doors and The Family Man, but its focus on female friendship and artistic expression gives it distinct identity.
The theatrical elements echo works like Beach Read by Emily Henry, while the magical realism aspects call to mind authors like Sarah Addison Allen. However, Harbison’s grounding of fantastical elements in real emotional stakes creates something that feels fresh within these traditions.
The Final Verdict
The Other Side of Now succeeds because it uses its fantastical premise not as escapism, but as a tool for deeper examination of very real human struggles. The quantum slide becomes a metaphor for the way we all carry alternate versions of ourselves—the roads not taken, the words unspoken, the chances missed.
The novel’s greatest strength lies in its emotional honesty. Harbison doesn’t offer easy answers or simple redemption. Instead, she presents the messy, complicated work of forgiveness—both of others and ourselves. The ending, while hopeful, acknowledges that some things cannot be undone, and that healing often requires accepting loss rather than trying to reverse it.
While not without minor flaws, this is a remarkably accomplished debut that announces Harbison as a significant voice in contemporary women’s fiction. Her ability to blend the magical with the mundane, to find profound meaning in simple moments, and to capture the complexity of human relationships marks her as a writer to watch.
The Other Side of Now reminds us that the most powerful magic isn’t the ability to change the past, but the courage to fully inhabit our present. In a publishing landscape often focused on high-concept premises, Harbison delivers something rarer: a high-concept story with an unshakeable emotional foundation.
Perfect For Readers Who Enjoyed
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
- One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle
- Beach Read by Emily Henry
- The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
- Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
- The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
The Other Side of Now is a compelling adult debut that balances magical realism with emotional depth, proving that the most meaningful journeys often lead us back to ourselves.
