Seventeen-year-old Josh Miller lives in a world of almosts. He's just friends with Hannah Taylor, the girl he's secretly in love with. He sits at the cool table but mostly gets made fun of, and he's number fifteen on a list of fourteen guys who are going to make varsity tennis.
He's pretty much about to throw in the towel on his pathetic life.
That is, until the day a tree-hugging physics professor tells Josh's class about string theory – the belief that with every decision we make, another version of us breaks free and starts its own reality.
Everyone else thinks the teacher's just a nut, but Josh treats the professor's half-baked ideas as gospel. He acquires a special tool needed to bounce from one world into the next.
Suddenly, Josh is thrust into an alternate universe in which he's the best junior tennis player in the United States and poised on the brink of superstardom. Hannah Taylor finally starts to notice him and he wins the adoration of the same kids in school who used to ridicule him. Josh's world of almosts turns into a world of everything and anything he's dreamed of.
It all seems perfect until Josh's old problems start to creep in and infect his new universe. Blowing tennis matches, losing friends, a little brother getting into trouble with drugs. Pretty soon his dreamworld has started to look more like a nightmare and even things with Hannah are falling apart along with his budding tennis career.
Will Josh end up trapped in a world that's even worse than the one he just escaped from, or can he finally write the alternate ending that fixes things before it's too late?
Alternate Ending is a kindle paranormal in the tradition of Pittacus Lore, I Am Number Four and James Patterson, The Angel Experiment (Maximum Ride, Book 1).
Alternate Ending: A Novel is an amazing novel. Josh Miller is an archetype slacker that finds his confidence and hollow success in an alternate reality. Its science fiction concepts aren’t solid. It left me with questions that were left unanswered.
From the moment Josh “crosses” over you know how the story the lessons that he has to learn. But the writing made me want to take this journey. I didn’t want to put it down. The changes between the reality were interesting, especially the physics teacher.
The backdrop for this alternate world is tennis. Aaron Niz incorporates fictional versions of real tennis professionals, with me having various levels of recognition. I googled the ones I didn’t know making the novel all the more interesting.
Even with the weird science it’s still a pretty good science fiction fix. I finished it in one sitting. Anyone with a passing interest in science fiction and tennis will love this novel.
I give Alternate Ending: A Novel 4 out 5.
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