The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North

*based on an ARC edition

Put simply, I loved this book. Harry August is a kalachakra, a person who is blessed/cursed with living his lifetime over and over...forever. Every time he dies who is born again in the same place and time, with full recall of the previous life. He's not the only one. There is the Cronus Club, all kalachakras who task themselves with helping each generation with the transition into each new lifetime- and also to keep all of their kind from changing the course of human events. However, as we start his story we are told the world is ending; one of their kind has introduced technologies decades before they were meant to be, rushing the collapse of the linear world. It has only happened once before, and the methods the Cronus Club utilized were...thorough. But this time it is Harry's closest friend, someone that has to be stopped, no matter how many lives it takes or what the cost must be. 

Harry immediately sucks you into his story. He is talking to someone, explaining his lives, sharing everything. We don't know to whom he is speaking until the end, but when it is revealed it packs a punch. I greatly enjoyed the ride of Harry's lives, and Harry himself. His "voice" is dry, droll, and matter of fact, a voice you can easily imagine carried the burden of almost a thousand years of collective life and experience. And as long as you ignore any scientific or philosophic thinking about the mechanics of his kind, the idea of living lifetimes over again and collaborating with those who can do the same is infinitely appealing. From what I surmised, each time a kalachakra dies another universe is born, an alternate future is set that parallels all their other lifetimes. Like I said, try to ignore the practicalities of it. Honestly, the science isn't that important. Where the science is important, it was so beyond my understanding I had no problem suspending my disbelief. 

This is a book that demands to be read. I look forward to everything Ms. North comes out with next. She has earned a lifelong fan.

After the End by Amy Plum

*based on an ARC edition*

To be honest, this book kinda ticked me off. I gave it two stars because I was able to read it, and was not forced to throw my Kindle across a room so as to get away from it. I liked the concept; Juneau was raised in the wilds of Alaska, led to believe by the adults in her small "clan" that World War 3 happened in 1984 and they were some of the few survivors. She and the other children were all born with a starburst pattern in their irises. They are all taught to tap into something called the Yara, which is basically Mother Nature. At a certain age they undergo a rite that ties them to the Yara for life- and it will be a long commitment because their clan does not get sick and does not age. But while she is out hunting one day she hears helicopters (which she knows about because of the small library they have which includes the Encyclopedia Brittanica) and returns to find her clan gone. Her mentor, Whit, was supposedly out on a walkabout not far from them so she goes to seek him out. When he is not where he should be, using her skills as the next Sage, she communes with the earth and it shows her where she must go. She ends up in Anchorage and is shocked to find out that there never was a war, and the world has been going on just fine. But things are not fine with her, as she soon finds out that not only are the helicopter men after her, it seems as though Whit is as well. She discovers that the head of a drug company wants her because he believes she knows how to make a drug that is essentially the fountain of youth.  
    Then there is Miles, the son of Blackwell, the drug company guy. We meet him right away. He has been kicked out of school and Yale has said they are holding his enrollment until he gets help for his behavior issues. Thinking he could make his father grease some wheels if he finds this teenage girl Miles overhears him talking about, he sets out for Seattle, the last place his father's men saw her. Now Miles does find her, and Juneau has been told by oracle that she must tell him the truth because he is the key to her finding her clan. But Miles thinks she's a lunatic. He's also a bit of a dick.
    And that's where the story lost me. I'm intrigued by where the nature/drug/lies story is going (and I'll have to wait because I assume by the abrupt ending that this is the beginning of another trilogy) but the romance vibe is ludicrous. I like Juneau. I hate Miles. He has zero redeeming value and it stretches the imagination too thin to believe that they would ever like each other. He's an ass. He does start believing her, and start helping her for unselfish reasons, but it takes the whole book to get there. There's a kiss, and the requisite "No, I can't allow myself to feel that way towards him/her" but it's too forced and I hated it. I get that romance is a key element to YA fiction, and ordinarily I am ok with that, and there have been many beautifully written relationships in YA. This one, to me, is not the start of a beautiful relationship. Perhaps the second book will make me buy it. I suppose we'll see.
   I can't say that I would recommend buying this when it comes out. I think the book would have been leagues better if it had been told solely in Juneau's perspective, and there was no thrown together romance between her and Miles. As I said, the story itself has merit, but the execution, in my opinion, was flawed. 

Plus One by Elizabeth Fama

*based on an ARC edition

     I wanted to like this book a lot more than I actually did. Plus One was pretty well written, and the story was engrossing, but I felt that there was a few things missing. The book takes place in an "alternate history" (which I thought was a very interesting concept) in which after the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, the U.S. government decided that the population would be divided into two different times. Meaning half the people are allowed out during the day, and are colloquially known as Rays; and the other half are only allowed out at night, and are known as Smudges. According to the story, this policy helped stop the spread of disease by reducing the amount of people around at any given time. As society is wont to do, one side treats the others as scum. In this instance it is the Smudges who are downtrodden, poor, and treated like criminals. However, the sides weren't decided by any special criteria, so I was confused as to why that was. 

     Soleil is a Smudge, and her grandfather is dying. Her older brother was recruited into the Day because of his special computer skills, and she hasn't seen him in two years. But he just had a daughter, and Sol wants to make sure her grandfather can hold the baby just once before he's gone. To this end she pulls together an elaborate kidnapping plan that depends on her injuring herself at her Night job so that she will be in the hospital during the Day. She manages to get the baby with the unwitting help of a Medical Apprentice- but it's not the right baby. It turns out to be the baby of the head of the Night Ministry (the government of the Night people). So this is bad. 

     There are important things about Soleil and Ciel (her brother); their parents were terrorists trying to bring down the division of Night and Day, Ciel works with a shady crowd, and there is much more about this baby Sol kidnapped than she knows. She and the Medical Apprentice fall in love, inevitably, and it turns out maybe it was fate that brought them together that day. 

     The thing is that while I actually did enjoy the details, and the story, so much of it was kinda unexplained. For instance, it seems like the Day people all speak French, as does Sol and Ciel (their names mean sun and sky in French, respectively) but there's no reason for that given. There's no explanation, really, for why on Earth Sol thought this kidnapping plan was anything but a horrible idea. The end, for me, is unsatisfactory; had I been Sol it would have worked out a lot differently! It could have done well with an epilogue, as well. 

    Perhaps there will be some reworking by the time the book is released. Overall I did like the book, just not as much as I wished to. I feel like there was a great deal of promise and potential but it ultimately fell a little short.