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emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder
Moderate: Terminal illness, Death of parent, War
Minor: Sexual content
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Minor: Death, Suicide, Violence, Death of parent, War
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
To quote the great philosopher Eleanor Shellstrop, holy shirtballs, this was GOOD! Our Infinite Fates gets our infinite stars!!!! I can’t even put into words just how heartbreakingly beautiful this story was.
I tried SO hard to figure out the why behind what was happening but I never in a million years would have guessed correctly. I was SHOOKETH to my core with that twist.
The only thing I would have loved to see more of was the “falling in love” parts of their timelines. It was a very fast paced book, and I found myself wishing that I could get more of their love story in each time period. Even with that, this book was literal perfection and one that I will be thinking about for a long time.
I tried SO hard to figure out the why behind what was happening but I never in a million years would have guessed correctly. I was SHOOKETH to my core with that twist.
The only thing I would have loved to see more of was the “falling in love” parts of their timelines. It was a very fast paced book, and I found myself wishing that I could get more of their love story in each time period. Even with that, this book was literal perfection and one that I will be thinking about for a long time.
Content Warnings
Minor: Cancer, Death, Gun violence, Sexual content, Death of parent, Murder, War
dark
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I'm going to chalk this one up to...I'm not the target audience for this one and leave it at that.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Torture, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship
Moderate: Cancer
Minor: Suicide, Suicide attempt, War
emotional
mysterious
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, Murder
Moderate: Terminal illness, Death of parent, War
Minor: Sexism, Sexual content, Forced institutionalization
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I was a little disappointed that so much of the story felt so linear, even though it was essentially flipping back and forth from walking backwards in time to the present day. I think it's possible that this type of story is not for me, because I was not a big fan of Addie LaRue either, and the two premises are rather similar.
That being said, I did get a little emotional at the ending, but I feel that a story like this should have had me absolutely weeping. The characters often felt distant and detached despite that being the opposite of the author's intention. It made for a bit of a strange reading experience, although the author's writing is good and I would try a future book from them that didn't deal with time jumps.
That being said, I did get a little emotional at the ending, but I feel that a story like this should have had me absolutely weeping. The characters often felt distant and detached despite that being the opposite of the author's intention. It made for a bit of a strange reading experience, although the author's writing is good and I would try a future book from them that didn't deal with time jumps.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer, Death, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Colonisation, War
Moderate: Sexual content
Minor: Gun violence
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Cancer, Death, Violence, Death of parent
Moderate: War
Minor: Forced institutionalization
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-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
Our Infinite Fates is about two souls, Evelyn and Arden who reincarnate over and over again across a millennia and they are destined to find, to love and ultimately to kill each other. But maybe in their present life, they can break this curse?
Their love story is something I yearned to read when I was a teen. I wanted Yuen fan, a fate and a great romance as epic as Chinese folktales of lovers who die tragically but will love each other again in the next life.
I enjoyed the back and forth between their present day life and the many lives they lived before in history. Each location and time period was a little snapshot that told me the reader who these people are and how each lived life affected their relationship. This format isn’t for readers who don’t like jumping back and forth but I had a really good cry. (Algeria, WWI and Athens - IYKYK)
I think this book is a real testament to Laura Steven’s ability to write character-driven stories. Despite Evelyn and Arden being different people with different bodies in different time periods, I had understood their core character and why they are different yet attracted to each other. It made the story compelling to read.
While there’s still hot tears running down my cheek and my eyes are raw and puffy, I’m not sure if I’m content with the nature of their curse. It felt like the concluding and breaking of their curse was very neat and over too soon. Maybe I’m too picky because these are two souls who have been tortured with their love for a millennia! They probably deserved a swift conclusion to put them out their misery.
On a final spoiler-y note, the final flashback of Calliope and Daphne was the most deliciously sapphic thing in the whole book!
Overall, I loved this book. The eternal romance, the angst, the poems of a stoic pining love interest. It was beautiful.
Their love story is something I yearned to read when I was a teen. I wanted Yuen fan, a fate and a great romance as epic as Chinese folktales of lovers who die tragically but will love each other again in the next life.
I enjoyed the back and forth between their present day life and the many lives they lived before in history. Each location and time period was a little snapshot that told me the reader who these people are and how each lived life affected their relationship. This format isn’t for readers who don’t like jumping back and forth but I had a really good cry. (Algeria, WWI and Athens - IYKYK)
I think this book is a real testament to Laura Steven’s ability to write character-driven stories. Despite Evelyn and Arden being different people with different bodies in different time periods, I had understood their core character and why they are different yet attracted to each other. It made the story compelling to read.
On a final spoiler-y note, the final flashback of Calliope and Daphne was the most deliciously sapphic thing in the whole book!
Overall, I loved this book. The eternal romance, the angst, the poems of a stoic pining love interest. It was beautiful.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Murder
Moderate: Sexual assault, War
adventurous
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
4⭐️ - Thank you so much to Netgalley, the author, and St. Martin’s Press for gifting me an E-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Our Infinite Fates was so unique and beautiful!!! This book covers topics of soulmates, reincarnation, and gender fluidity while incorporating detailed aspects of history.
To start off, the writing was so so lovely. I really loved all the unique words the author used as well as their descriptive writing was very enjoyable to read. Next I absolutely LOVED the plot and overall concept of this book. I’ve always loved period pieces so reading all the past life flashbacks that took place all throughout history was very fun for me. The author also seemed to do adequate research on the time periods, languages, architecture and more, everything felt very realistic. The concept of being reincarnated into other lives was enjoyable and honestly not a huge topic discussed in books. I really loved the aspect of our main characters Arden and Evelyn loving each other but also having to kill each other in every life because it created a sad but romantic read.
On top of the interesting plot, the author also deeply dived into the gender fluidity topics. Both Evelyn and Arden were reincarnated as both boys and girls throughout their many, many lives but still loved each other nonetheless. It really proved the author’s point of loving someone based on their soul and personality not on looks or what not. It was really beautiful seeing how they traversed these different lives and unique conditions (as lgbtq+ relationships were looked down upon/not allowed in a lot of these time periods) but still managed to love each other despite it all.
I liked that throughout the book the reader was left in the dark as we read from Evelyn’s pov and they were also left in the dark about why this whole reincarnation and killing thing was happening. However, I feel like it took awhile to get any sort of answer. It may have been more interesting if little pieces were put together throughout the novel however that just didn’t happen as much as expected. Due to this I felt like it caused a very rushed and sudden ending where everything was revealed at once. However, I still enjoyed the ending and was satisfied with how the book played out. It was definitely a plot twist and not what I expected at all. But it was really sad but still beautiful.
To me this book also had good sized chapters. Never too big or too short. It felt mostly fast paced which helped keep me entertained and made it easy to keep up with and understand the plot
This book was a 4 star read for me mainly because it just felt like something was missing. While I really enjoyed it I just didn’t love it. There was nothing outright wrong with it because I did really like it but I feel like some sort of element should have been added to make it a 5 star. I don’t know what but something needed to be there. I also feel like I wasn’t as connected to the characters as I could have been. I think that probably is due to the constant flashbacks, the changes in lives and names. It was a lot to keep up with at times which made me feel a little disconnected.
I would also like to add that this book is marketed as Young Adult. However, despite the characters only living until 18 in each life they have still technically been around for 1000s of years. This book also does have some sexual scenes and explores heavy topics as well as explicit scenes of war and torture and nudity. So I would market this book more at lower new adult rather than YA. The characters definitely didn’t feel like teenagers due to their constant reincarnation.
Overall though, this book was unique, diverse, beautiful, and very interesting. I really enjoyed the entire process. I definitely recommend if you enjoy unique books and books with historical elements as well as lgbtq+ rep. Excited to read more by this author in the future!
Once again thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a digital review copy!
Our Infinite Fates was so unique and beautiful!!! This book covers topics of soulmates, reincarnation, and gender fluidity while incorporating detailed aspects of history.
To start off, the writing was so so lovely. I really loved all the unique words the author used as well as their descriptive writing was very enjoyable to read. Next I absolutely LOVED the plot and overall concept of this book. I’ve always loved period pieces so reading all the past life flashbacks that took place all throughout history was very fun for me. The author also seemed to do adequate research on the time periods, languages, architecture and more, everything felt very realistic. The concept of being reincarnated into other lives was enjoyable and honestly not a huge topic discussed in books. I really loved the aspect of our main characters Arden and Evelyn loving each other but also having to kill each other in every life because it created a sad but romantic read.
On top of the interesting plot, the author also deeply dived into the gender fluidity topics. Both Evelyn and Arden were reincarnated as both boys and girls throughout their many, many lives but still loved each other nonetheless. It really proved the author’s point of loving someone based on their soul and personality not on looks or what not. It was really beautiful seeing how they traversed these different lives and unique conditions (as lgbtq+ relationships were looked down upon/not allowed in a lot of these time periods) but still managed to love each other despite it all.
I liked that throughout the book the reader was left in the dark as we read from Evelyn’s pov and they were also left in the dark about why this whole reincarnation and killing thing was happening. However, I feel like it took awhile to get any sort of answer. It may have been more interesting if little pieces were put together throughout the novel however that just didn’t happen as much as expected. Due to this I felt like it caused a very rushed and sudden ending where everything was revealed at once. However, I still enjoyed the ending and was satisfied with how the book played out. It was definitely a plot twist and not what I expected at all. But it was really sad but still beautiful.
To me this book also had good sized chapters. Never too big or too short. It felt mostly fast paced which helped keep me entertained and made it easy to keep up with and understand the plot
This book was a 4 star read for me mainly because it just felt like something was missing. While I really enjoyed it I just didn’t love it. There was nothing outright wrong with it because I did really like it but I feel like some sort of element should have been added to make it a 5 star. I don’t know what but something needed to be there. I also feel like I wasn’t as connected to the characters as I could have been. I think that probably is due to the constant flashbacks, the changes in lives and names. It was a lot to keep up with at times which made me feel a little disconnected.
I would also like to add that this book is marketed as Young Adult. However, despite the characters only living until 18 in each life they have still technically been around for 1000s of years. This book also does have some sexual scenes and explores heavy topics as well as explicit scenes of war and torture and nudity. So I would market this book more at lower new adult rather than YA. The characters definitely didn’t feel like teenagers due to their constant reincarnation.
Overall though, this book was unique, diverse, beautiful, and very interesting. I really enjoyed the entire process. I definitely recommend if you enjoy unique books and books with historical elements as well as lgbtq+ rep. Excited to read more by this author in the future!
Once again thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a digital review copy!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, Murder
Moderate: Death of parent, War
Minor: Sexual content
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Our Infinite Fates is beautiful, haunting and epic. It is only YA because of the mortal age of the main characters, but the story truly appeals to readers all ages. I especially recommend it highly to anyone who loved The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Perhaps I loved this even more.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War
Moderate: Body horror, Cancer, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Homophobia, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Lesbophobia, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism