TandeWrites

This was another highly anticipated read for the year, and I read this incredibly beautiful OwlCrate edition. And I know I say that most books are highly anticipated for me, but they usually have to be in order to make me feel strongly enough about them for a sit-down review, and this one has been on my radar ever since the author said it’s the book version of ‘exile’ by Taylor Swift.

Evelyn remembers all her past lives. She also remembers that she’s been murdered before her eighteenth birthday in every single one by Arden, a supernatural being whose soul—and survival—is tethered to hers. The problem is that she’s quite fond of the life she’s in now, and she needs to stay alive for a bone marrow transplant that will save her little sister. So now Evelyn has to: a) find the centuries-old enemy who hunts her through each life and break their curse for good, b) figure out exactly why she’s being hunted in the first place, and c) try quite hard not to fall in love with them. Again. 

This book is pitched as The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue meets This is How You Lose the Time War, which set very high expectations as I adore both of those books, so you can imagine my disappointment when Our Infinite Fates did not live up to them. I understand how the loose themes can be compared, but I wasn’t seeing any further connections. But I did want to give this book a fair chance to live up to expectations, as I really enjoyed Every Exquisite Thing by this author (despite the end reveal), and I can’t deny the appeal of a shiny special edition.

The premise was promising—obviously, as it lured me in—and I can see why it would be appealing to many other readers. It’s a pretty simple approach to a reincarnation story, and I wasn’t too far off when I jokingly compared it to the third book in the Fallen series when I unboxed this book in the OwlCrate box. The reincarnation plot isn’t used in an interesting way, and it is far too rooted in the present timeline to pull off the concept that it is trying to execute. At one point, it felt like the past timelines were simply being used as a vessel for the characters to have the same conversation over and over again, just in different locations and bodies around the world. There are only so many times I can read the same moment in a slightly different font without adding any depth to the characters or making them feel like people who have lived a thousand lifetimes before I start skim reading. We’re told over and over again that Evelyn and Arden are supposed to be in love, yet none of the timelines are spent showing us that they’re in love or making the relationship complex or even convincing. And I didn’t find the characters as individuals to be compelling or have enough depth for me to be rooting for their survival, alone or combined. Evelyn’s personality is basically that she’s too nice and her internal dialogue is very old soul / not like other girls, and I do not care that she is literally an old soul. They are both too immature and childish, and I know that it takes a few years into each reincarnation for Evelyn to remember that it’s not her first time being alive, but her stance on life didn’t seem to change after the realisation.

The mystery behind the fact that they’re reincarnating and can’t live past eighteen is the driving force behind the plot and the most frustrating part of the book. I will say now that I thought the ‘killing each other in every lifetime’ concept would be more symbolic of fate and a repeating inescapable cycle rather than the epitome of a miscommunication trope. Only one of the characters knows what’s going on, and it’s not the narrator, which is most of the reason why the confrontations and conversations were repetitive. There is a way to do this cat and mouse game well (see: the comp titles for this book), which would’ve been helped by spending less time in the present timeline and more time in the past establishing those former lives and making them notable plot points with substance. I needed more time to be spent building the mystery and suspense and foreshadowing, especially so the Big Reveal wasn’t so…jarring.

Gina Denny did an excellent Patreon post recently (titled ‘That’s Not a Plot Twist. It’s a Rug Pull, and Everyone Hates It.‘) about whether a plot twist is truly a plot twist or if it’s ‘pulling out the rug’ from beneath the reader. A good plot twist feels almost always comes with “I KNEW IT!” and brings everything together in a way that feels complete and satisfying. A rug pull brings everything together in a convoluted way that requires a lot more explanation for anyone to understand. And Our Infinite Fates was, in my opinion, the embodiment of a rug pull. It was anticlimactic and so incredibly disconnected from the story that I had to put the book down for a few minutes. I then spent the final 20% of the book making fun of it in my head because it simply took away any ability I had left to take the story or the characters seriously anymore. It was borderline nonsensical, and I didn’t like it as an ending, something I should’ve seen coming as this is also how I felt about Every Exquisite Thing by this author. However, this ending introduced the idea of Daphne x Calliope to me, and I am vaguely grateful for that little clever detail. 

I originally gave this book four stars on Goodreads, then three, and now two after writing this review and reassessing my feelings, and 2.5 stars on StoryGraph because, ultimately, I did finish this book and had a mostly okay time doing so.