Author: Neal Pollack
Publisher: Amazon Publishing
Rating: WARTY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!
I requested to review this novel because it sounded very reminiscent of one of my favorites of all time: Replay by Ken Grimwood, which I reviewed last September. In that novel, a man in his early forties finds himself inexplicably transported back into his body as a college undergrad, and has to live his life over again - but he has all his memories intact from his original life. Rinse and repeat. There is a twist or two however, making for a varied and really engrossing read.
In this novel, a man named Brad Cohen, on the cusp of his fortieth birthday finds himself inexplicably being born again, and going through the entire forty years of his life once more, but with his original memories intact. Breast-feeding wasn't fun. Rinse and repeat. There are significant differences between this novel and Replay, the most immediately notable one being this issue of starting his life over from birth each time. Fortunately, we don't follow him through his formative years each time he cycles back.
After a speedy progression through his childhood in this first re-incarnation, we skip it in repeat visits to focus on the differing ways in which his life progresses because of the choices he makes. His first repeat is a much more industrious and serious life than his original was, the second much less so - and for me, boring because of it. I could have done without forty pages of his efforts to win on Jeopardy which for me, trivialized the whole reincarnation experience. I skimmed this part. In some ways it was understandable that he did this because he realized only too painfully after his first reincarnation that while he could predict accurately what was going to happen, he couldn't do anything to change it, and he'd given up trying. That surmise still didn't prevent it from being a boring read, though.
In his third reincarnation, the seriousness comes crashing back with a vengeance, but this is a very short recounting. Unexpectedly, the perspective changes after that and focuses somewhat on something upon which his focus has been entirely absent up to this point: his wife Juliet. I really appreciated this change of pace and view-point, but it didn't last long before Brad showed up, and this is where there's a really big give-away about what's been happening to Brad.
Two things bothered me here. The first is that Juliet wasn't bothered that Brad came across like a really creepy stalker. This kind of writing disturbs me. She doesn't know anything about him, but he knows everything about her, and whenever she expresses an opinion or a preference he tells her he knows, and this doesn't creep her out at all!
I know the both of them are pot-heads, but even given that, her evident lack of street smarts is off-putting to say the least. I'd have liked it better had it been written better here, especially the conclusion to this particular repeat. We know that Brad he isn't a stalker - at least not in the usually understood sense! - and we can believe that he's unlikely to do her any harm, but she doesn't know that.
The second thing which bothered me is Brad's complete lack of a clue on how to initiate his re-acquaintanceship with a woman whom he knew, in his original life, for years. You would think he would be smart enough to be circumspect on how he contacted her and how he came to ask her for a date, but he isn't. This shouted a complete lack of empathy for a woman he knew better than anyone else. It makes him look unfeeling at best, and like a jerk at worst. The fact that given his creepy approach, Juliet readily agreed to a date and was ready to jump into a car with him based solely on how cute she thought he looked was truly sad, and spoke badly of her mentality, too.
In the end I can't in good faith recommend this as a worthy read. Some parts are really good, but others (as identified above) were really not interesting. The basis of the plot was telegraphed way in advance, which in turn predicted the ending, so there really were no surprises, and it began to lag and drag a lot after that first reincarnation was over with.
In the end it seemed to me that this story was really a mash-up of Replay, Groundhog Day, It's a Wonderful Lifeand The Wizard of Oz, but it didn't have the best elements of any of those stories. This writer does have talent however, so perhaps another time, another story, I can reach another conclusion.
