Book Review: The Coincidence Makers by Yoav Blum

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Publish Date: March 6, 2018

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Yoav Blum for the privilege of previewing this book in exchange for an honest review.

What if the drink you just spilled, the train you just missed, or the lottery ticket you just found was not just a random occurrence? What if it’s all part of a bigger plan? What if there’s no such thing as a chance encounter? What if there are people we don’t know determining our destiny? And what if they are even planning the fate of the world?

Enter the Coincidence Makers—Guy, Emily, and Eric—three seemingly ordinary people who work for a secret organization devoted to creating and carrying out coincidences. What the rest of the world sees as random occurrences, are, in fact, carefully orchestrated events designed to spark significant changes in the lives of their targets—scientists on the brink of breakthroughs, struggling artists starved for inspiration, loves to be, or just plain people like you and me…

When an assignment of the highest level is slipped under Guy’s door one night, he knows it will be the most difficult and dangerous coincidence he’s ever had to fulfill. But not even a coincidence maker can see how this assignment is about to change all their lives and teach them the true nature of fate, free will, and the real meaning of love.

I have this theory about life. My theory is that all of us live in a world that is orchestrated. We are controlled like puppets or like The Sims where everything is planned out for the people in the game. Or maybe we live in someone’s gigantic science project and we are the size of ants, living in a world where someone is causing things to happen to us. For example, every time I am driving and crossing an intersection, it’s FULL of traffic. EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. Or, every time I go to the store without makeup on, I run into someone that I know. How can that be? These things happen too frequently for them to be a coincidence.

So when I saw the title of this book, and read the plot, I gasped. My little theory is brought to literary life!

This book is a fast, fun, quirky, and entertaining read.

This story doesn’t fall cleanly into any genre. If you ask me how I’d categorize it, I’d say this book might be fantasy or science fiction. But it also has elements of fate, life, love, mystery, and chance that are reflective of other genres.

What I Liked

1. The Chapter Names. They matched the Coincidence Makers lessons that the main characters were trained on.
2. The Client Stories. These are the ordinary people who were the recipients of the coincidences, specifically the stories of Alberto Brown and Michael.
3. The intriguing premise. The “coincidences” in life are really orchestrated by a higher organization. These situations, big or small, are caused Coincident Makers and can change a trajectory for a person.
4. The fantasy aspect. Coincidence Makers aren’t human, they are a different kind of “consciousness” that support humans.  Sometimes Coincidence Makers are given personas by humans – in the form of children or adults as imaginary friends.
5. The missions. Guy, Emily and Eric were trained together, and are now on missions to create events in the lives of their ‘assignments’ that they orchestrate – such as major life events and love. Every single situation matters, even a spilled drink!

What Could Have Been Better

1. More Background. I didn’t even catch on that Guy, Eric, and Emily were not human until 60% into the book. This would have helped me understand the randomness of Guy being an imaginary friend to Michael.
2. More Context. A lot of the context was vague and didn’t set up the story with a good foundation. I had a better understanding of the story from reading the Goodreads reviews (thank you, fellow readers!)… more so than I did from reading this book. I had challenges understanding the plot solely from reading the book. I’m an “average” reader – I need everything explained fully or I won’t be able to follow along – I think that many people fall into this category.
3. Textbook Excerpts. There could have been more relevance to the chapters if there was a stronger tie in between the textbook excerpts and what happened in the chapter.
4. The Pace. It was a bit slow until 70% into the book where key information is uncovered.

Interestingly, this book was originally published in Hebrew and now translated to English. Nevertheless, this is a unique story and the premise will stay in my mind for a long time.

This quote sums it up perfectly: