Review: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am astounded. I started this book not knowing what to expect; all I knew was it had an interesting premise: Harry August, a kalachakra, one who gets reborn after dying, receives a message that the end of the world is fast approaching, and it is up to him to stop it.

I was so very pleasantly surprised. The first half of the book was good. By the second half, I couldn't put it down.

I did a small research about Claire North (pseudonym of Catherine Webb), and found that she started writing at a very young age. And that impressed me even more. She wrote the voice of Harry with the tone so very fitting of his age and time. She wrote a story of espionage and deceit mixed with science fiction, and how a man of many lifetimes struggled and then lost and regained himself in an effort to save the world. North showed a deep understanding of history, science, and everything in between. Her mastery of her writing style is evident in every page, in every paragraph, and every sentence. It was almost poetic.

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Favourite lines:

Men must be decent first and brilliant later, otherwise you're not helping people, just servicing the machine.

Communism needs good people, people whose souls are kind by instinct, not by effort. But that is what we most lack, in this time. For progress, we have eaten our souls up, and nothing matters anymore.

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