Someone Else’s Shoes

I’m always on the lookout for books that can make me laugh, cry, and feel like I’ve been wrapped in a warm hug. With Someone Else’s Shoes, beloved author Jojo Moyes delivers on all fronts. Taking a deceptively simple premise—what if two women literally had to walk in each other’s shoes?—Moyes spins out her story in unexpected ways that had me flipping pages long past my bedtime.

Someone Else’s Shoes centers on two very different middle-aged women who accidentally swap gym bags. Suddenly, the globetrotting and glamorous Nisha is stuck with nothing but a pair of drab black pumps when her ruthless husband drops a divorce bombshell. Meanwhile, the overworked, underappreciated Sam finds that the world sees her differently when she puts on the sky-high Louboutins now in her possession. What follows is a journey of self-discovery, an ode to female friendship, and so much more.

At times, the novel buzzes with the fizzy energy of a caper. In other moments, it threatens to break your heart with its clear-eyed acknowledgment of life’s hardships. Ultimately, reading Someone Else’s Shoes made me feel like I was curling up for a rewatch of one of my favorite comfort movies. Moyes has created a group of flawed but loveable women who grow stronger when they work together. What a satisfying, heartwarming gift it is to spend some time in their shoes.

Who are you when you are forced to walk in someone else’s shoes?

Nisha Cantor lives the globetrotting life of the seriously wealthy, until her husband announces a divorce and cuts her off. Nisha is determined to hang onto her glamorous life. But in the meantime, she must scramble to cope—she doesn’t even have the shoes she was, until a moment ago, standing in.

That’s because Sam Kemp—in the bleakest point of her life—has accidentally taken Nisha’s gym bag. But Sam hardly has time to worry about a lost gym bag—she’s struggling to keep herself and her family afloat. When she tries on Nisha’s six-inch high Christian Louboutin red crocodile shoes, the resulting jolt of confidence makes her realize something must change—and that thing is herself.