Henry August is what is known as a kalachka or oroborean, a person who when they die are born again at the beginning of their own life and get to relive it over and over again. Harry is unusual among them as he can remember absolutely everything about every previous life as well. During his third time around, he is introduced to the Cronus Club, a club whose members are all like him in living their lives multiple times. They help him each lifetime by taking him out his parent's house when he is young and letting him be who he really is without pretense as he grows. Now at the end of his 11th life, a small child appears at his bedside to tell him that the future world is ending faster than ever and things have gone horrible wrong. The future kalachkas are sending messages back in time, from children to the elderly to try and figure out what has happened and how to stop it. Henry realizes that he has had a hand in causing the problem but figuring out how to stop it is going to take a few more lifetimes...
Interesting premise but poorly executed. I never cared about Henry or any of the other characters which made it difficult to really care about anything else that was happening in the book. Henry lacked depth and emotional connectedness and maybe that was on purpose as he does show several times in the book that he remembers certain deeds from his past with regret but that really seemed to be about the entire depth of character for him. He never really displayed much in the way of passion or interest in anything, even himself. I wanted so much to like this book as I do find the concept of reliving your life over and over again to be fascinating but in the end, it was just meh.
Page count: 400p/15,336p ytd/230,270p lifetime
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