AnneHannah

I like the idea that there are other alternate realities out there, and in that respect this book is a win. Can you imagine being able to scroll through other (maybe better) versions of your life? To be able to see the What If  factor first hand? Very cool.

Ruby is dissatisfied with her life. Her mother was killed in a car accident years ago, and now her father has remarried. The package comes complete with a psychotic step-sister. Oh, and she had to move away from her best friend (aka boy of her dreams) in order to go live with her wacky new family.
So, no. Life is not good.
But it suddenly gets interesting when she discovers an old tree that has the power to take you to alternate dimensions. Kind of like Dr. Who's phone booth, only without the time travel and ever-changing sidekick. The how's and why's of the tree are never fully explained, even though Ruby spends a great deal of time trying to collect information and figure it out.
Did I mention that Ruby is some sort of child-genius? Good thing, too. 'Cause if I got stuck in that tree there's no way my tiny mind would have been able to figure out how to make it work. Thankfully, our heroine doesn't still use her fingers to add and subtract.
Don't judge me. Not all of us were good at that whole 'math' thing....
Anyway, because Ruby enjoys a healthy understanding of physics, she is able to get into this tree and travel to these other dimensions. She gets to see what it would be like if things had played out differently.

Is it everything she hoped for?
Well, here's where I didn't really care for the story. I mean, what was the point? To find out that in a different world you could have had an awesome brother? To find out that your mother might still be alive out there in another reality, but she wants you gone and her (rather ungrateful) daughter back? To find out that...what? I felt a bit disappointed by the ending. She came, she saw, she barely made it back. Something just didn't feel complete to me after the last page. Maybe I just need more closure in my books?
I guess the point is that life is what you make of it.

This isn't a bad book, it just wasn't exactly my cuppa.