The Once and Future Me

By Melissa Pace and Melissa Pace

Book Overview

Dark Matter meets Girl, Interrupted in this gripping psychological thriller about a young woman teetering on the edge of reality.

Virginia, 1954. When a woman wakes on a patient transport bus arriving at Hanover State Psychiatric Hospital, she remembers nothing of her life before that moment, none of the dark things she must've seen and done that forged her into the skillful and cunning fighter she is. Doctors tell her she's Dorothy Frasier, a paranoid schizophrenic, committed for her violent delusions. She's certain they're wrong--until disturbing visions of a dystopian future in which frantic scientists urge her to complete "the mission" and save mankind begin to invade her reality.

Believing it's Hanover causing the hallucinations, she tells no one and focuses only on escaping--until there's a visitor. A man whose loving face--and touch--she remembers, a man who knows all about her visions, because he's spent years helping her cope with them: her husband, Paul Frasier.

Now she's sure of nothing, caught between two realities. Believe in the future, and she might save the world. Believe in her husband and doctors' plans for her treatment, and she might save herself. She needs answers, but to get them she'll have to harness the darkness inside her as she risks her freedom, her mind, and ultimately her life in a heart-stopping quest for the truth.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1250358671
• ISBN13: 9781250358677
• Release Date: August 2025
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 4.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Interesting idea

This book really makes the horrors of a 1950s mental hospital come to life, as well as the powerlessness of women to make choices about their own bodies and how their rights were superseded by the men their life. The first part of the book went by really quickly as I did not know if Dorothy's mission was real of if she was an unreliable narrator making up the whole idea due to mental instability. It does get a bit crazy but I did enjoy reading it and seeing how awesome Dorothy/Bix could be, despite the limitations and procedures she went through at the hospital. However, the balance between the hospital and all its scary procedures, left little room for the other part of the story of the supposed future in which Dorothy/Bix was sent back in time to find something that might save humanity. It was a hastily sketched future and I would have enjoyed learning more about it with all the fighting and the virus. I was also a bit disappointed by the ending which left things hanging and no sense of closure. So, the idea was really interesting and I liked the first bit as Dorothy tried to piece everything together and avoid being turned into a lobotomized zombie but really wish the second part had more to it. I give it three stars.