Harry's 15 lives were far from magical/enjoyable

Maybe I was expecting too much from this book based on all the five star reviews, but I was overall, uninspired by it. First of all, while the audiobook narrator was fantastic, and all of the distinct voices and dialects really helped me get a little more into the story, I would not recommend listening to this on audiobook, at least not if it's your first read-through. I found myself needing to skip back 30 seconds or a couple of minutes way more than a normal audiobook, just to figure out what had just happened. Usually that was more because of the author's roundabout way of getting her point across vs anything surprising/exciting happening.



Honestly, I wasn't really interested in a single thing that happened until maybe the just last 1/4 of the book. I read several reviews that said something similar, but they were able to get past the fact that the first 300 pages were somewhat boring based on the fact that the ending was good. To me, to make a book truly noteworthy, far more of it needs to be readable and enticing. I kept waiting for certain events to come back into play that just never did. I know they all affected Harry and his psyche and his way of viewing the world, but I expected them to have more lasting impact on the overall story.



The ending was good, don't get me wrong; but much of what came before was unremarkable and probably could have been far more whittled down with the same amount of payoff at the end. I did enjoy some of the writing style, like how she switched back and forth between all of Harry's different lives and decades without too much confusion from the reader. However, I just did not come away from this dying to share the experience with someone else ( which I always want to do with books that make me think or excite me) and I would not recommend this to my other avid-reader friends.