We chat with author Evelyn Skye about Ideal Life, which is a story that asks whether our relentless pursuit of an ideal life might be keeping us from truly living at all.
Hi, Evelyn! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I’m so happy to be back here on The Nerd Daily! For readers new to me, I’m a New York Times bestselling author of 11 novels. I’ve written everything from contemporary magical realism to a fantasy for Netflix to a sweet princess book for Disney. I live in California with my husband and daughter, and my current hobby is learning how not to kill my houseplants.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I have loved reading for as long as I can remember. Growing up, Pizza Hut had a reading challenge where you could get a free personal pizza after reading a certain number of books, and I was very motivated to eat as much free pizza as possible. The staff at our local Pizza Hut were probably like, Oh look, it’s that nerdy reader kid again!
As for writing, I wrote a lot of poetry and short stories as a kid, and I majored in Russian literature in college. But it actually didn’t occur to me that I could become a writer (as a real job!) until I was in my 30s.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Strawberry Shortcake’s Cooking Fun (it was a children’s cookbook, and I still have a copy on my bookshelf).
- The one that made you want to become an author: Twilight, because it surprised me how addictive it was and I wanted to figure out why I couldn’t put it down, and then see if I could write something as compelling, myself.
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. The characters are so deep and nuanced. It’s a master class in writing.
Your latest novel, Ideal Life, is out now! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Rewind and redo 24 hours.
What can readers expect?
A scientist gets a watch that lets her rewind the last 24 hours, as many times as she wants. She uses it to redo things to perfection so she can live her ideal life. But her focus on optimizing herself causes other things to fray, like her relationship with her best friend and also her sister. The lingering question is, does obsessing over self-improvement and optimizing everything make us forget to actually live?
This book also explores AI and technology and what responsibility the inventors have when wielding the ability to change people’s lives, for better or for worse. I did a lot of research about Silicon Valley, and the characters represent different perspectives on technology.
Where did the inspiration for Ideal Life come from?
Social media and news articles are a constant barrage of “You’re doing X wrong!” or “You could be doing Y better!” I also noticed my friends often beat themselves up that they weren’t trying harder to be the best possible version of themselves at every possible moment. This got me thinking about whether our drive to improve ourselves could sometimes hurt, rather than help, us.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I love Sam. He’s a former physicist who grew disillusioned with the tech world and then bought a decommissioned lighthouse to turn into a bookstore. He’s also the main character’s best friend and he takes care of her in subtle ways she doesn’t always realize, like insisting on a standing Sunday Taco Bell lunch date so that she would leave her office at least once a week.
Did you face any challenges whilst writing? How did you overcome them?
It was challenging to write about AI while the technology itself was changing so rapidly. With big publishers like mine, authors have to finish writing the book about a year before the publication date. So I had to predict what kind of technology would (or would not yet) exist by the time the book came out in order for the characters’ viewpoints and the plot to be relevant.
For example, when I started writing Ideal Life a couple years ago, smart glasses were not mainstream. But through my research, I saw that not only Meta, but also Google, Apple, and others were talking about them in their investor earnings calls and other industry news reports. So I wrote smart glasses into my book, in hopes that by the time Ideal Life published, readers would actually know what smart glasses were but also that they would still feel like relatively new technology. I was lucky I got that timing right!
What’s next for you?
I’m working on a secret project that is quite different from any book I’ve written before, but that’s part of the fun! I think that if you’re a writer, you shouldn’t be pigeon-holed into writing only one genre but should, instead, write what you enjoy at the moment. Anyway, I’m excited about this new book I’m working on and can’t wait to tell you all about it when it’s ready!
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up? Any you’ve read so far this year that you’ve enjoyed?
I’m late to Stories of Your Life and others by Ted Chiang but enjoyed it immensely. I recently read Heiress of Nowhere by Stacey Lee; her prose is always so beautiful. As for what I’m looking forward to, John Green’s new one, Hollywood, Ending.
