Where Aiden Has a Tough Day

The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a brilliant concept, and much of it is carried off well, but there is so much weight dragging it down that I just barely give it the nod between "liked a little" and "disliked a little."

The writing is great; there are many beautiful lines filled with excellent imagery and expressive figurative language that really works. I often find such language overdone, as if the author is just trying too damn hard, but I didn't feel that way here. I like the way this author puts together sentences and paragraphs.

I'm also impressed with the way the author has taken the premise--a man is reawakened each day in the body and mind of another person--and followed it to some logical extremes. For example, the MC is at the beginning both very confused and only lightly influenced by the personality and memories of the person he is inhabiting. As the days continue, or as the repeated day plays out again, he is less confused but increasingly lost in the personalities he is shoved into. That change happens over time, and it is nicely meted out in bits all through the novel.

However, the plot is a thousand-piece puzzle that the reader is trying to assemble in their head. The complexities of a typical murder mystery, learning the various characters' names and histories and motivations and movements, is usually hard enough, but here we have movement back and forward through time, meaning the question of who knows what or who is doing what has to be joined to the question of "what time is it?" Then, we also have a mystery from a generation earlier (which murder mysteries often have), plus the mysteries of who set up the strange Groundhog Day conditions of the story and the reason they did it. It's like Agatha Christie through a funhouse mirror.

In a way, the author pulled it off, but the demands it makes on the reader to keep things straight, to remember that this event must occur so that this other event, which we observed chapters earlier but will actually happen hours later, will also occur, though we don't know why either is necessary... I found it exhausting.

I find myself in the unfortunate position of identifying with Amadeus's Emperor who advised the composer that his opera just had too many notes.

Final peeve--I understand well enough what happened in the story, how it ended, but I don't understand what happened after the book. The question is not just where they ended up, but when. Disappointed I didn't get that answered.

Recommended for those who really like puzzle mysteries. I further recommend you keep a spreadsheet open for your notes.

Or you can just let it roll over you like I did and simply read it to the end, hoping it all makes sense.


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