It revolves around two college roommates/ friends: one beautiful, statuesque and adored, the other mousy, diminutive and ignored. Elizabeth and Mary couldn't be further apart in similarity, but being thrust together as college roommates has them finding friendship in one another. Elizabeth is a social butterfly who easily makes friends, while Mary just blends into the background. However, becoming friends with Elizabeth finds Mary in social circles not usually available to her.
Mary is a bright scientist whose family doesn't believe in her, so she hopes to one day prove them wrong and, as a start, she's gotten an internship at Confluence, a company making headlines with their Empathyzers, electronic devices allowing two people to transfer their consciousness into one another in order to facilitate better understanding of one another in therapy. Mary mentions them to her roomie, and to her surprise, Elizabeth jumps at the chance to body swap. Amazingly, Mary has more confidence in Elizabeth's body and Elizabeth enjoys being smarmy and mean while inhabiting Mary, which is Mary's typical demeanor with everyone but Elizabeth. Suffice it to say that the pair continue to swap bodies for fun throughout the summer, until one fateful night during a Halloween party when everything changes.
Garrett Deegan, an abrasive, wealthy frat boy who also happens to work at Confluence, since his aunt is the CEO, has been lording it over Mary at work for a while. Combine that with the fact that he has the hots for Elizabeth and the party at his frat house is a recipe for disaster. It's a shame, too, since Mary's crush, Nate, is in that same frat and with Elizabeth piloting her body, "Mary" just might have the courage to finally talk to Nate... or more. Suffice it to say that things happen and Garrett has an accident on the stairs, causing him serious injury. When the dust settles, it appears that Mary was to blame, and although Elizabeth was in her body at the time, she lets her bestie take the fall.
Fast-forward some 7 years and Mary lives in a dump, taking whatever cash jobs she can, since any wages she makes legally are garnished by Garrett's parents following a lawsuit. Obviously, her dreams of groundbreaking science were dashed when she was expelled from school, lost her job and her scholarship, and was forced to move back home, at least until Garrett's parents destroyed her parents' lives as well. These days, she follows Elizabeth's glittering social media career and plots revenge, having spent the last 7 years trying to recreate another Empathyzer - so she can finally steal Elizabeth's life.
When she does manage a ninja attack on Elizabeth during a bustling brunch, Mary feels like she knows Elizabeth well enough to pull off imitating her permanently. After all, she did it many times when they were in college and no one was ever the wiser. But Elizabeth isn't going to go down that easily. After all, she has it all - an amazing career she loves, a handsome husband that she and her followers swoon for, a beautiful house, and the most enviable life - or does she?
Sure, she married Nate, because of course she did, but Elizabeth's life is far from the dream she presents on her socials as #bethybeth. For starters, Nate is a raging cheater, so she cheats a bit as well, specifically with her handsome photographer, Lorne, who is also a gun-carrying drug dealer. Her assistant, Hailey, is quite competent, but doesn't seem to like her much and exchanges a few too many knowing glances with Nate. Plus, it seems she's been dealing with blackmail for quite a while, and most recently, someone has been in her DMs ordering her to confess. Of course, that could have something to do with the fact that Garrett overdosed and died a few months back. Mary took the blame all those years ago, but it seems someone knows the truth. When Mary took over this body and life, she had no idea what she was in store for.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth is stuck in Mary's pathetic apartment with no money or tech to help her. She bumps into Mary's neighbor, Miguel, a quiet academic who seemed to be helping Mary with his studies into Out of Body Experiences and he's all too happy to help this more friendly version of Mary, especially since he recently came to her rescue when she was being pestered by Detective Johns, the cop who investigated Garrett's fall all those years ago. It seems neither Mary nor Elizabeth has a particularly enviable life right now.
As the pair plays a game of chess with one another, aspects of both girls' lives start to blow up, and they just might have to trust one another again if either one has a hope of making it out alive. Yeah, it gets that bad.
Overall, I loved When I'm Her. It is a really jacked-up story (in the best way) about the relationship and dynamics between two women, and how their perceptions can become so horribly twisted that's its difficult to tell who the actual villain is. It ended really well, was a well-planned and thought-out story, and I really enjoyed the scientific aspect to it. I will say that I figured out the twist pretty early on, but the pacing was terrific. If the idea of a STEM-fem thriller appeals to you, you'll probably love When I'm Her.
