The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August

Genre: Science Fiction
Length: 432 pages, or 12 hours and 10 minutes on audiobook

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Synopsis: No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes.
Until now.
As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. ‘I nearly missed you, Doctor August,’ she says. ‘I need to send a message.’
This is the story of what Harry does next, and what he did before, and how he tries to save a past he cannot change and a future he cannot allow.

My Rating:

★★★

...for being a creative time travel novel, but lacking in emotion.

My Thoughts:

For a while I debated on whether or not time travel books were my thing.  This book has helped me to decide that they are not.
Books on time travel make my head hurt.  Every time someone travels through time in a book, my brain struggles to make everything work in my head, and I end up feeling a little punch drunk.
This book was no exception.  The science of reliving the same life over and over again seemed to make sense in this story, but there were fifteen lives to keep track of!  Flipping fifteen!  And each one was different!
The fact that the protagonist kept debating about this stuff did not help at all either.  Admittedly, I got a little bored with the conversations he had with others of his kind.
I couldn't really like Harry August either.  His character didn't really have enough substance.  If he had a sense of humor, I think I would have liked him better.
With all that being said, this still was a pretty creative book.  It reminded me a lot of Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson, except this time the character is fully aware of the fact that he is reliving the same life over and over again.  The plot picks up the pace fairly quickly during the final third, especially since we're not jumping back and forth between lives, but going in sequential order (that helped a lot).
This book wasn't exactly for me; it lacked emotion and intensity.  But it was very creative, and it ended well, so if you're into science fiction or time travel, this is a good book for you.