Your Soulmail Is Attached, Joan F. Smith (Review by Rachel Taran)
Rating: 3.75/5 Stars
If you could know who your soulmate is, would you want to? And if you knew, would you believe it? What if your assigned soulmate doesn’t feel right for you and someone else does? These are the life questions explored by the characters in Your Soulmail Is Attached.
Olivia Adler’s life is changed the day the emails went out, in more ways than one. The same night that she discovers her fiancé has cheated on her, she learns that an email has been sent to every single “of age” human in the world declaring the name and birthday of their soulmate. These mysterious emails are untraceable and cannot be deleted. This same night, Olivia’s professional life is also turned upside-down when she unexpectedly (and mostly unwillingly) upgrades from the writer’s room of a news network to on-air Soulmail correspondent. What follows the night of the emails is a multi-layered story of family history, destiny versus free will, love, and rekindling of old friendship.
As Olivia navigates the personal and professional changes she is facing, other areas of her life not only begin to crumble but also seem to come into better focus to her. No matter what she has going on or what she has been through in the past, she seems faced with the overarching question of, “do I let life happen to me or is it my choice?” Prior to Soulmail, Olivia’s life has seemingly been happening to her. Her reactions to life moments are more because she feels a certain obligation, not because she has made her own choices. Soulmail shakes up this mindset for her until she ultimately gets to decide where she wants her life to go next independent of others’ opinions.
This was a fun plot to contemplate what I would do in the same situation. Different characters responded in different ways, and there were also several unexpected national and worldwide pros and cons to the entire situation. If you have ever read the book The Measure by Nikki Erlick, this felt like a more light-hearted version of a similar storyline that was just as interesting to ponder.
