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nostoat 's review for:
Our Infinite Fates
by Laura Steven
I'm really torn on what to rate this book. On the one hand, the premise is incredible, and many of the flashback chapters shine. The start of this book is quite strong, and the writing is good, poignant even which is tricky with books like this - deeply preoccupied with romantic love, they can often get quite caught up in their own poignancy and get pretentious and unbearable. However... as the book continued, the quotable bits felt less and less real and true, and more and more like parts of the book the author was writing to be quoted. Ooooo look how clever and deep and real this book is about love and grief! Except it rang increasingly hollow.
Not only that, but our characters reincarnate over and over again, living their lives from birth to 17. About half of this book takes place in the year 2022, with Evelyn, the viewpoint protagonist, being 17 about to turn 18. Her younger sister has extremely serious cancer and she's about to donate stem cells in an attempt to save her sister, but the usual deadline for her eternal lover/enemy to show up and kill her is looming. Throughout the modern sections of this book, Evelyn, a character younger than me by five years, who would have grown up even that much more of a digital native, constantly reflects ideas about the modern world and modern technology that don't match either a modern teenager OR in my opinion, someone who has actually lived through the past. At one point the author uses one of the worst similes I've read in a while to talk about modernization, which was especially jarring because despite making me want to roll my eyes at points, the actual quality of the prose was good! I found it completely defied belief that Evelyn, who has lived through a millennia of a mostly not-modern world would complain about smartphones and neon lighting and brush past the miracle of modern medicine in a single sentence when modern medicine is the plot point the entire modern half of the story revolves around? Without it, her sister would have been long dead, and she wouldn't have a remote chance of actually being involved in saving her. I've spent a lot of words on this, but this part was so jarring and struck me as deeply ahistorical, and the author projecting her/our attitudes about modern life onto a character who has actually lived through times before now that we look back on with some strange nostalgia. Sure, they didn't have smartphones; they also didn't have any cures for cancer.
And the ending... truly whatever. I enjoyed the epilogue, but the way the climax of the plot goes is so cliche I didn't even read it, I fully skimmed through those two chapters basically yawning. I thought perhaps we might go somewhere interesting after Arden finally revealed information but no.No, despite Evelyn being a devil, what makes her special and beautiful is her empathy and then they kill the embodiment of human suffering with the power of looooovvvee heart emoji heart emoji heart emoji. Kill me.
At the end of the day, if you aren't a jaded aroace low empathy autistic person who's tired of stories this deeply up their ass about romantic love and the power of empathy to make even monsters human, you might enjoy this book. I just want to roll my eyes out of my skull.
Not only that, but our characters reincarnate over and over again, living their lives from birth to 17. About half of this book takes place in the year 2022, with Evelyn, the viewpoint protagonist, being 17 about to turn 18. Her younger sister has extremely serious cancer and she's about to donate stem cells in an attempt to save her sister, but the usual deadline for her eternal lover/enemy to show up and kill her is looming. Throughout the modern sections of this book, Evelyn, a character younger than me by five years, who would have grown up even that much more of a digital native, constantly reflects ideas about the modern world and modern technology that don't match either a modern teenager OR in my opinion, someone who has actually lived through the past. At one point the author uses one of the worst similes I've read in a while to talk about modernization, which was especially jarring because despite making me want to roll my eyes at points, the actual quality of the prose was good! I found it completely defied belief that Evelyn, who has lived through a millennia of a mostly not-modern world would complain about smartphones and neon lighting and brush past the miracle of modern medicine in a single sentence when modern medicine is the plot point the entire modern half of the story revolves around? Without it, her sister would have been long dead, and she wouldn't have a remote chance of actually being involved in saving her. I've spent a lot of words on this, but this part was so jarring and struck me as deeply ahistorical, and the author projecting her/our attitudes about modern life onto a character who has actually lived through times before now that we look back on with some strange nostalgia. Sure, they didn't have smartphones; they also didn't have any cures for cancer.
And the ending... truly whatever. I enjoyed the epilogue, but the way the climax of the plot goes is so cliche I didn't even read it, I fully skimmed through those two chapters basically yawning. I thought perhaps we might go somewhere interesting after Arden finally revealed information but no.
At the end of the day, if you aren't a jaded aroace low empathy autistic person who's tired of stories this deeply up their ass about romantic love and the power of empathy to make even monsters human, you might enjoy this book. I just want to roll my eyes out of my skull.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Medical content
Moderate: Suicide, Torture
There is a whole chapter set in an extremely abusive 1800s asylum, it talks in pretty graphic detail about therapies of the time, confinement, and generally is a brutal read.