Reviews with content warning for Violence - Reincarnation Blues

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Reincarnation Blues by Michael Poore

35 reviews

katethepodtherapyartist's review against another edition

slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

I wanted to like this book, I did. The plot sounded interesting, and the cover art was like an inviting beacon saying “read me!”

The story follows Milo, a man who has lived 9995 lives, and has 5 more to reach Perfection in the afterlife or be sent to oblivion. But none of that has mattered to him before because Death (aka - Suzie) is his only reason for being. The only reason he keeps being reincarnated and dying. She is his love. So now Milo has 5 chances to figure how to become one with everything and get it right.

It was overall not my cup of tea. The pacing was all over the place for me. Suzie, the love interest, is barely in it and we know nothing about her. I feel like for as central to the plot as Milo trying to reach Perfection and be with her forever, I know very little about their love for each other, their history, etc. I was told they love each other, but I didn’t see it, I didn’t feel it - I was told, not shown. I felt like I was watching a movie where things happen, but I feel 0 connection to any of the characters. Milo is a deeply flawed, and often sexist, character, but that doesn’t matter because he’s a cool, wise, awesome dude once he dies (please note the sarcasm). Actions in life do have an impact on what kind of house you have in the afterlife and what/who you’re reincarnated as in your next life, but it fell flat for me. Milo has countless iterations of being a terrible person and the most he gets as punishment is a bad house and waking up in a well. How terrible.

There were some interesting passages and quotes, but overall it was not a satisfying read for me. Definitely won’t be a reread, as I found much of the book deeply uncomfortable and leaving me feeling gross. I’m not a reader that needs or uses trigger warnings, but boy howdy is this a book that needs them for a lot of readers.

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alainaaraee's review

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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kcgarris's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

this shit rewired my brain.

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squirrelinseattle's review

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adventurous challenging funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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opplecopter's review

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Stopped this one somewhere around halfway through. The overall storyline was very interesting: a man named Milo has lived almost ten thousand lifetimes. He falls in love with death, who prefers to be called Suzie. With each lifetime, he is meant to learn and grow and become a better person, but he’s a slacker, kind of floating through his lives without really accomplishing much, until he finds out he needs to try harder.

Milo eventually is informed that a soul only gets ten thousand lives to “achieve perfection” and he’s running on his last few chances. If he fails to accomplish this task, his soul will be “cancelled like a dumb tv show” as explained in the book, meaning he will cease to exist. On one hand, Milo doesn’t want to achieve perfection because that means he will no longer be able to be with Suzie after each life has ended and on the other, he doesn’t want to just vanish, either.

Seems like this one could be a fun read, right? Well it was, then it wasn’t. We take a look into the various lives Milo has lived from being various warriors, a spoiled rich, privileged teen whose sole goal is to impress a woman and take her “restored virginity” (eye roll), another teenage boy who is falsely accused of rape by a gorgeous, intelligent, popular female student with a powerful family and who also happens to have mental health issues which led to her accusation (eye roll again, seriously?) and is then imprisoned in space for this false crime, where he is the one who is raped, a researcher who helps build ships to help humankind survive after the world is about to be destroyed, and others. This book was definitely written with an air of misogyny by a white man and I learned later on that the author uses racist language that is not in any way valuable to the story line. “Moon ni**er”…what? The story repeatedly veers off into these needlessly lengthy and sometimes disgusting retellings of some of Milo’s past lives (most of which are not relevant whatsoever to the main story) and it felt like it just fell off the original path over and over to the point where I had no desire to pick this book back up. It became a series of short stories within a story, with each one often becoming more vulgar or just extremely stupid, and not the funny kind of stupid. I hate to DNF books and I really tried with this one. I pushed further with it even after I found it to be awful, but I eventually was done. I regret the time I wasted even trying.

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decembermagpie's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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anniehayez's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

I have to say this was very different from what I was expecting. After reading the synopsis and looking at the cover, I though this would be a fun adventure with some romance. That’s not exactly what you get. This book is not for a light read or the faint of heart. It’s a fun book but it tackles SERIOUS topics and storylines. It is more like a collection of short stories than a novel. There are many potential trigger warnings needed. There was even use of racial slurs that were completely unnecessary and gratuitous uses of abuse as plot points. Overall I liked the concept and came to enjoy the story as a whole but some of the mini stories were not for me and effected my enjoyment of the book as a whole. I found I was scared to pick it up in case I had to read a 30 page chapter about a life/story I didn’t care for. I would be very careful who I recommend this too. I might read it again and enjoy it more because I know what to expect. But I would have to be in a very specific head space.

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