The Year We Turned Forty

"The Year We Turned Forty" by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke is a what-if novel about three friends who get the chance to go back to their fortieth birthday and re-live the next decade the way they think they were meant to live it (in hindsight).


It's a good premise, well executed. An interesting variation on the usual "make things un-happen" theme, this book does not allow to go back far enough to erase mistakes - it only allows to handle the blowout from the mistakes differently.


The novel asks important questions about fate, karma, the definition of happiness, and - ultimately - about the meaning of life.