A wildly imaginative novel about a man who is reincarnated over ten thousand lifetimes to be with his one true love: Death herself.“Tales of gods and men akin to Neil Gaiman’s Sandman as penned by a kindred spirit of Douglas Adams.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) First we live. Then we die. And then . . . we get another try? Ten thousand tries, to be exact. Ten thousand lives to “get it right.” … thousand tries, to be exact. Ten thousand lives to “get it right.” Answer all the Big Questions. Achieve Wisdom. And Become One with Everything.
Milo has had 9,995 chances so far and has just five more lives to earn a place in the cosmic soul. If he doesn’t make the cut, oblivion awaits. But all Milo really wants is to fall forever into the arms of Death. Or Suzie, as he calls her.
More than just Milo’s lover throughout his countless layovers in the Afterlife, Suzie is literally his reason for living—as he dives into one new existence after another, praying for the day he’ll never have to leave her side again.
But Reincarnation Blues is more than a great love story: Every journey from cradle to grave offers Milo more pieces of the great cosmic puzzle—if only he can piece them together in time to finally understand what it means to be part of something bigger than infinity. As darkly enchanting as the works of Neil Gaiman and as wisely hilarious as Kurt Vonnegut’s, Michael Poore’s Reincarnation Blues is the story of everything that makes life profound, beautiful, absurd, and heartbreaking.
Because it’s more than Milo and Suzie’s story. It’s your story, too.
Praise for Reincarnation Blues
“The most fun you’ll have reading about a man who has been killed by both catapult and car accident.”—NPR
“This book made me laugh out loud. And then a page later, it made me sob. Reminiscent of Tom Robbins and Christopher Moore, Poore finds humor in the dark absurdities of life.”—Chicago Review of Books
“Charming . . . surprisingly light and uplifting . . . It reads like a writer having fun.”—New York Journal of Books
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A friend of mine recommended this book and luckily, @zan loaned me her copy! It’s bit like Douglas Adams meets Cloud Atlas. Milo is the oldest soul in the Universe, and he has yet to reach Perfection. This doesn’t seem to be much of a problem until he finds out that even the Universe has a cap on how many lives a soul can live before being banished to Nothingness. And to complicate matters, Milo is crazy in love with Death personified (aka Suzie). This concept alone would have hooked me but Poore’s language is so clever and the yarns he spins are so detailed that I’ll be thinking about this book for awhile yet. There are a few gruesome parts, so be warned, but there are also really lovely, tender moments as well. The novel reads like a series of interconnected short stories and the narrative jumps back and forth in terms of genre (something I liked a lot, though I can see how it might be jarring for some readers). Overall though, this was a fun, witty, and thought-provoking read!
This is the most original and fun book I have read in years! What a talent.
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“Why don’t you leave her?” asked Milo.
Floyd digested this question for five full minutes.
“I’m trying to be mature about things,” he said at last. “I thought maybe we just needed time. Marriage is work.
…
“The problem with a barracuda,” said Milo, “isn’t that you aren’t being mature. The problem is that it’s a barracuda. If you don’t like being in the boat with it, one of you has to go.”
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I really wanted to like this one… With clever, pithy lines about life and love like the one above (to illustrate the point, Milo actually pulls a barracuda into the boat, where it thrashes at Floyd’s feet – one of the BEST illustrated life lessons EVER in fiction!), how could I not be intrigued?? I was a little apprehensive, because Douglas Adams and Christopher Moore are hit-and-miss authors for me, and there were more than a few comparisons between those authors and Poore, but I was optimistic because of the subject matter. I’m fascinated by the concept of reincarnation and love when Death is a character – there are so many wonderful possibilities to explore in the complex relationship between man and Death… I was semi-turned off from the get-go though – the book opens with reference to death by shark, and I have a ridiculous life-long phobia about sharks, so I was battling the eight ball from the opening line. Unfortunately, things never really picked up for me after that…
I still really like the concept, and am still somewhat curious to see where Suzie and Milo wound up – which is unusual for a book I’ve given up on. I was curious enough, in fact, that I sought out other reviews to see if it was worth sticking with this one. After reading what others thought, I suppose it’s possible that if I’d kept slogging through I would have made it past the jumble of time-lines and perspectives that I found so unnecessarily scattered and distracting and gotten into the story, but I was getting too frustrated to stick with it and after putting it down multiple times I finally decided it simply wasn’t for me. No one spoiled the ending, although a number of readers commented that the end surprised them. Those comments moved the book from a solid position on my “gave up on” pile and into my “come back to it later” one – although there are a slew of Adams and Moore works in line ahead of it and those have been there for some time…
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“Death was a door. You went through it over and over, but it still terrified people.”
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Have you ever read a book and thought “Holy Frigging Sh*t! This is great!!!! It’s funny and thoughtful and weird and I love it !!!” And you can’t wait to tell everybody about it. “Everybody has to read this book right now!”
But then you think about it and you realize that nobody is going to read the book because they don’t have time or they don’t read much anyway or if they were going to read anything it wouldn’t be something you recommended because secretly they think your taste in things suck.
And if anybody did read it they would hate it because it makes no sense, and what the hell is it all about anyway? Some guy with a cosmic soul named Milo continually gets himself reincarnated for centuries in order to keep dying over and over again because he has fallen in love with Death who is actually this very cool kind of Goth girl named Suzie and she loves him and the two of them want to get out of the cosmic game and run a little candle shop somewhere but then Milo gets reborn and meets the Buddha who unfortunately has Alzheimer’s, and so on.
And when you describe it to that one friend you know who will certainly love it, and he reads it, he ends up loving it for totally different reasons than you do and what the hell….
May as well just forget the whole thing
This book was recommended to me by a colleague and I highly recommend it to you. Emotional ups and downs the whole way through. If I had to pick a favorite, this one takes the cake.
Fun read.
I couldn’t put this book down. “Reincarnation Blues” by Michael Poore is a witty, humorous story of a man named Milo who’s lived nearly 10,000 lives. If I believed in reincarnation, this is how I would imagine it. Each life is supposed to teach a lesson, and ultimately, people are supposed to achieve a “perfect” life. Milo, has lived more lives than any, and yet he still hasn’t received perfection. His afterlife is also complicated, as he is involved in a forbidden love.
Each chapter of the book is about one of Milo’s lives or his time in the afterlife in-between his lifetimes. At first, I wasn’t sure I was going to like this book. For some reason, the first few pages, I just didn’t care for Milo. But as I got further into his story, I really came to enjoy reading about all of Milo’s lives. And no, Milo doesn’t always come back as a human. Poore mentions his lifetimes as animals, but doesn’t commit whole chapters to these lives. Milo’s lives jump from the ancient past to the far off future, so it’s hard to define what sort of genre this book falls into. There are fantasy elements, futuristic sci-fi, modern day, Poore brings so many different worlds to life.
I don’t want to give too much away, but I enjoyed reading this book. Poore has a interesting and sometimes brutal way of story-telling that is funny but also heart wrenching. Milo is a flawed man, but he tries so hard, I couldn’t help but keep wishing better for him.
This is a great work of fiction that I think has a broad audience, for sci-fi and fantasy fans. I’ve not read anything like this, so it’s hard to define a definitive group of readers that would enjoy. If you don’t like Milo at first, give it a chapter or two, and I think you will warm up to the guy, like I did.
If Tom Robbins and Christopher Moore had a baby…
There were echoes of Tom Robbins in this, even in the original blurb, which is why I picked it up. However, parts of it were heart-breakingly tragic, brutal and sad. It kept me entertained and took me on an intriguing journey thru life and death and life again.
This was quite a ride! I enjoyed following the main character through some of his MANY lives – he was so “human” and relatable throughout (though he learned a few things along the way). Diversion though it was, it made me think about my own decisions and where karma might take me (without my knowledge or consent). I liked it a lot.
a little funny but mostly silly.
Highly original. Fresh. Great pace.
This book has ruined my book list. I haven’t been able to pick up another pick since finishing it, so I read it a second time. I had no idea what the next page would bring from beginning to end. From laughter to tears to that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you realize we are all one. Absolutely recommended to anyone!
A wild ride through time and space as the main character lives many lives. Told with great wit and humor, laden with quotable insights into the human condition.
A unique entertaining story.
Great story but a bit too long…
I enjoyed the book however near the end it just seemed to continue a bit too long. Great premise and fun lives, very creative.
Thought provoking
This was a nonsensical disjointed story. I found this book to be unimaginative. It was a waste of time.
A fun, entertaining story about love and life and what it means to “get it right.”
I found this difficult to follow. The character was not interesting or engaging to me.