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ryanpfw 's review for:
The Unusual Second Life of Thomas Weaver
by Shawn Inmon
I truly enjoyed this one.
Spoilers for The Unusual Second Life of Thomas Weaver.
I'm a big fan of the reliving-your-life sub-genre. Of the variations I've read, such as The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and A Gift of Time, this one is closest to Ken Grimwood's Replay. I believe reviews can sometimes hinge on where and when you pick up the book, and while I don't feel it's quite as strong as Replay, this book showed up for me at the perfect time.
Fifteen year old Tommy Weaver's brother Zack finally fulfills a promise and brings his younger brother to a keg party before he moves on to college. Zack gets drunk, Tommy tries to drive him home, and the resulting car wreck kills Zack. Tommy wastes the next forty years of his life, eventually becoming an unemployable raging alcoholic who is a burden on his mother. He commits suicide, only to wake back up in his childhood bedroom back in 1976.
In coming to terms with his second chance, Tommy realizes he has the opportunity to do some good. Observing his homeroom class, he identifies Carrie as a future victim of suicide, and Michael as a future serial killer. His efforts to save lives backfires to some degree, and more widespread changes in this timeline point to more travelers returning to relive and change their former lives. We get some degree of explanation as to why Tommy is allowed to travel back in time, whether they be aliens or angels or humans from the future. That feels weaker than complete mystery, although this is presumably the start of at least a twelve part series, so I'm sure we'll get significantly more information as time passes.
Tommy's observations were natural and intriguing. The best part of this genre is picturing how you'd react to waking up as a child again, and it'd be too easy to overlook those details in the narrative. The one complaint I did have that took me out of the story was that this was a third-person narration with first-person thought bubbles interspersed throughout the story.
Tommy walked down the hallway. I WONDER IF THERE'S ANY ORANGE JUICE LEFT. Tommy opened the fridge.
It was a little jarring, especially when narrated by Audible.
All in all, I strongly recommend it.
Spoilers for The Unusual Second Life of Thomas Weaver.
I'm a big fan of the reliving-your-life sub-genre. Of the variations I've read, such as The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August and A Gift of Time, this one is closest to Ken Grimwood's Replay. I believe reviews can sometimes hinge on where and when you pick up the book, and while I don't feel it's quite as strong as Replay, this book showed up for me at the perfect time.
Fifteen year old Tommy Weaver's brother Zack finally fulfills a promise and brings his younger brother to a keg party before he moves on to college. Zack gets drunk, Tommy tries to drive him home, and the resulting car wreck kills Zack. Tommy wastes the next forty years of his life, eventually becoming an unemployable raging alcoholic who is a burden on his mother. He commits suicide, only to wake back up in his childhood bedroom back in 1976.
In coming to terms with his second chance, Tommy realizes he has the opportunity to do some good. Observing his homeroom class, he identifies Carrie as a future victim of suicide, and Michael as a future serial killer. His efforts to save lives backfires to some degree, and more widespread changes in this timeline point to more travelers returning to relive and change their former lives. We get some degree of explanation as to why Tommy is allowed to travel back in time, whether they be aliens or angels or humans from the future. That feels weaker than complete mystery, although this is presumably the start of at least a twelve part series, so I'm sure we'll get significantly more information as time passes.
Tommy's observations were natural and intriguing. The best part of this genre is picturing how you'd react to waking up as a child again, and it'd be too easy to overlook those details in the narrative. The one complaint I did have that took me out of the story was that this was a third-person narration with first-person thought bubbles interspersed throughout the story.
Tommy walked down the hallway. I WONDER IF THERE'S ANY ORANGE JUICE LEFT. Tommy opened the fridge.
It was a little jarring, especially when narrated by Audible.
All in all, I strongly recommend it.