Published: February 2025
Pages: 352
Summary
Evelyn remembers all her past lives. She also remembers that in every single one, she’s been murdered before her eighteenth birthday by Arden, a supernatural being whose soul―and survival―is tethered to hers.
The problem is that she’s quite fond of the life she’s in now, and her little sister needs her for bone marrow transplants in order to stay alive. If Evelyn wants to save her sister, she’ll have to:
1. Find the centuries-old devil who hunts her through each life―before they find her first.
2. Figure out why she’s being hunted and finally break their curse.
3. Try not to fall in love.
My thoughts
With all book reviews I always start with the positives, because in most cases there are lots of aspects that I liked/loved. That is not the case with this book. I enjoyed the humour, there are a few well placed one liners that made me snicker, but that’s where my enjoyment of this book ended.
Perhaps I should have put the book down, we all come across a book at some point where it just isn’t for us and that’s okay. However, I was waiting for the promised time-defying love story. I adore a romantic love story and I picked up this book to scratch that itch so I kept on reading. It wasn’t until I reached the end where my small niggles became larger issues which just ruined the entire reading experience for me.
The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue meets This is How You Lose The Time War in this fantastical love story that defies death as two souls reincarnate through the centuries.
I was sold on this (I love Addie LaRue and I’m constantly on the lookout to fill the hole that book left) but let me be clear that this book absolutely does not deliver a fantastical love story. That is where a lot of my dislike comes from because throughout this entire story, we are not shown their love story, we are told it. If the only way a reader knows a couple are in love is because the author keeps saying so, that is not a good love story. Love must be established. We must be shown it. If the author removed all the ‘I love you’ from the dialogue, I would have no idea that they were deeply in love with each other. And to top it off, our main character doesn’t even know why she loves him, so how is a reader supposed to?
There was so much opportunity to dive into their love story and show us their history. The author gives us plenty of chapters of their different lives but each of those chapters is, infuriatingly, the exact same thing; new characters in a new city – meet each other again – crying – death. That’s it! I don’t feel their love spanning centuries, I don’t feel the ache or yearning or misery. I don’t feel the significance of the situation they’re in. I don’t feel any connection to these characters because it’s all shallow and surface level.
First person POV did not work
There are glimpses of answers we have questions to. We are told there is a connection, or a thread that pulls them together. But it never gets explored, we don’t see it happening. Perhaps a big issue of this is that it’s all in Evelyn’s point of view. I think a limited third person would have been brilliant with this story so we could see what Arden experiences and goes through. Get more insight into him and what he’s thinking and feeling. Can you really tell the story of a fantastical love story from only one perspective?
The pacing felt off
It was all over the place. This present day storytelling is told over a few weeks, and those sections are incredibly slow. I’m okay with slow if there’s character development. Addie LaRue was a very slow paced book but it was filled with intrigue, self reflection, opportunities to build on the character and the wider plot. It was slow but it progressed towards something and everything meant something. But with Our Infinite Fates there is no character development whatsoever which was very disappointing.
On the flip side, the chapters where we get to see glimpses of their past lives are incredibly fast. Besides the fact they all follow the same formula, it is a very jarring experience to be picked up and dropped off in a brand new situation, have everything happen at once over just a few pages, to then be dumped back into the present day.
I wouldn’t mind so much if the past chapters actually built the foundation of their love and it added something to the story, but they didn’t. You could remove them all and nothing would be gone from the story. Perhaps I’m being overly critical or harsh but it is how I feel.
Miscommunication trope
The other piece of this story is one of my worst tropes ever. This whole story would be completely redundant if they just spoke to each other. That’s it. Now, that wouldn’t make a good story if that happened which is why an entire plot should not be hung on these centuries old, deeply ‘in love’ beings not having a one minute conversation. They can, its just the author put it at the end of the book..
Good idea, poor planning
This book is such a good idea. I loved the sound of it! It is why I kept holding on through the issues I spoke about already. But what sealed the deal, the nail in it’s metaphorical coffin, was the ending.
I won’t share what the mystery is, so feel free to read the story and see if you enjoy it more than I did. I truly hope you do! But this was a perfect example of an author having a great idea with no idea how to end it. There was a lot of grasping at straws here and reflecting on it, it still does not make any sense.
Would I recommend?
No. Ultimately for me to feel the heartache of the story, of love transcending time there needs to be established love. An author cannot use loving dialogue and expect readers to believe them. We must be shown their love and their was plenty of opportunity to do that but it never happened.