The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

This book blew my mind! Utterly original and unique.

So this was an interesting book to read. I was recommended it while hearing positive reviews. What encouraged me the most was that comparisons were made to the visual novels, Higurashi and Umineko, both stories involving similar bits of plot details Umineko takes heavy inspiration from Agatha Christie as well, which this book clearly shares.

Which made me very disappointed when I came out of the book feeling nothing at best, and confusion at worst.

Let’s begin with the good things:

This is a book with an interesting premise. Being trapped in a time loop, with eight lives/days to figure out a woman’s murder. I used to be a big fan of murder mysteries before moving onto fantasy and science fiction, so to see those genres mixed together in a novel sounded like my type of thing.

I also really liked the message in the book. It’s something that could be applied to real-life and how social media has affected it. Too bad it wasn’t really that well overall.

The start of the book didn’t really capture me. In fact, the more I read, the more frustrated I became. I realized the time looping aspect was too repetitive for me, making me feel like I was trapped in a story that couldn’t be changed. Perhaps that was the point, with Aiden feeling the same way, but the character’s frustration shouldn’t become mine’s. I want to feel supportive of the character, maybe with a little frustration. Not where I wanted to quit the book to get out of the narrative loop. I wanted the feeling of a genuine break from the loop. Those were the victories I was wishing for.

My incapability to connect to Aiden didn’t help either. He was a character I was simply following throughout the story. I didn’t enjoy any other character much either. The vast majority have more flaws than virtues. In fact, I would’ve been fine with a flawed character if they were interesting. A story based on time loops makes character development very difficult, sadly.

I’ve actually wondered if there was something to Blackheath that made the characters more willing to speak to Aiden. It was like they were NPCs, where if Aiden had the right reputation and/or items, he could ask endless questions with little to no questioning back.

There was so much information to take in, from the loops to the large cast of characters to the culmination to reveals. Now, I’m no good at uncovering mysteries. I like mystery books to take me on a ride where I can point at hints, note them down, then continue reading. At the end, I hope to feel satisfied by explanations of what I’ve missed. I couldn’t bother trying to delve into this one because there was a mystery for everything. I was very thankful when things were spelled out for me; otherwise, I would’ve needed to hope someone online could explain the book to me.

This book only invested me as the climax reached its boiling point. Every mystery book makes me wonder how the mysteries would be tidied up, if they are at all. This book was the same. I won’t reveal how that goes, but I can say that I was somewhat sated by the end. Not impressed, but not upset either. I believe this book would be better as a reread now that I can see the complexity made simple.

And that’s why I’m disappointed. There was plenty of potential for a great story, yet I was too confused and frustrated to stay attentive from the beginning.

On the note of the audiobook, the narrator’s tone felt too flat for me to properly enjoy. It did the job just fine, but I didn’t feel immersed by his voice. The number of times I had to get the book and reread things he spoke, not because of him being unclear but because the book is unclear, didn’t contribute to my enjoyment either.

I really enjoyed this book. I never found the jumping around from character to character hard to follow. The author does a great job. The book is a period fantasy mystery thriller…. not my normal genre. However I highly recommend it for anyone who like knives out mixed with ground hog day.

It took me a while to get used to the language, and for the story to get going, but once I got past these points this became an enthralling read. I’m incredibly impressed with intricacy and complexity of the plot, the consistency of the drawing of the main characters, the peeling back of each layer to reveal new clues and insights, and that, in the midst of a twisty mystery, there was a subtle message on redemption. What an achievement!

Make my actual rating 1½ stars–and that’s being generous.

A confusing muddle of a “time-travel body-hopping murder mystery,” as described by the author in an addendum, by the time I was halfway through I considered giving up. But hoping what began intriguingly would give up some of its sluggishness and repetitiveness, I plodded on to the end. That was a mistake.

This is a novel with too many characters, too few of whom are developed because the body-hopping narrator TELLS us what they’re like rather than showing them via action and dialogue. Much of the narration felt like padding to me, the author trying for lyrical turns of phrase, not all of which came off well, rather than just moving his story along. By the time I reached the “big reveal” at the end, I didn’t care and wasn’t terribly surprised. I only wanted to reach the final page.

The author overuses the verb “claw,” and REALLY blows and overdoes it with “hiss.” All too often, we’re given a word or line of dialogue the speaker is said to hiss, even though what’s spoken contains no or too few sibilants to qualify.

Overall, I can’t recommend this confusingly plotted (and not in a good way), poorly- characterized novel.

Wow wow wow! Amazing! What an original story. I can’t imagine trying to keep track of eight different character’s storylines. This book kept me engrossed. I’ve never read anything like it before. It’s one fo the first time travel books that I’ve really liked.

Tiresome. I couldn’t get through it even though I tried twice.

I started listening to the audiobook and I just could not get into it at all. When stories start out and I cannot follow where they are going within the first chapter I give up. I have too many books to read and listen to and this one just did not capture my attention.

So I didn’t know what to expect when I started this book. It was a bookclub book, and when I started it I was way behind so I read it in a matter of a few days. With that being said, I really enjoyed this book. It is not my usual genre (I lean towards Adult fantasy and romance) but from the very beginning you can’t help but thinking, “what in the heck is going on here?”

The book is a first person POV mystery. From the very first scene you wake up in a person’s mind, witness a murder, with no knowledge of who you are and how you got there. The book continues along that vein, and only proves to further confuse you by adding time loop elements, and a game element to it. I spent a lot of time wondering what in the heck was going on, and much to this book’s credit, it actually was able to integrate all these different threads and details together in a way that was believable.

During discussions on reading I made a lot of outlandish comments regarding who the “killer” was, and somehow they all kind of ended up being true. The person originally believed to be a suspect in an earlier murder wasn’t actually responsible for it, the person I thought could be behind it, kind of was. But let me tell you what, even when I first started the book, I could not have been able to guess how it ends.

This book contains mystery, intrigue, violence, and confusion by the truckload. The only reason I am taking off a star, is because although I enjoyed the book, I felt like the ending fell a little flat. I was waiting for the “oh my god, no way!” moment, and it was more of a, “huh.”

What was that? I have no idea what I thought would be contained within the pages of this book, but that wasn’t it. (I mean that mostly in a good way. We’ll get to that in a minute.) I am not sure what to make of that cast of characters but they were like none I had ever met before. And all I could picture was a more decrepit version of the mansion from the movie “Clue” every time there was any reference to Blackheath.

What I liked about “The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle”:
Mind-bendy – As we meet the narrator, he has no understanding of what is happening, and we are given no outside influence on perspective. We know only what he knows or what he observes that we might pick up on before he does. I was constantly aware that I had only a fraction of the rules, but the more that was revealed, the more I became confused.
The details – You cannot let your mind wander for a second. There are details everywhere and trying to go back and find one to which you only gave half attention but later realize is something critical is definitely a mission of the “needle in a haystack” variety.
The way the layers of the story built – I love that with each new round, you gain a completely different vantage point. Coming back to the details I was just mentioning, you need each of them to form a more complete picture. Like when they create a picture using images on individual clear sheets that layer one over the next to form a whole.

What I didn’t care for:
All the buildup, resolution felt like I’d walked blindly into a wall – Here’s the best comparison I can make. This book has all the weird otherworldliness of an Erin Morgenstern fantasy with none of the captivating satisfaction at the conclusion. You just get your explanation and…that’s it. I just sat there, blinking.

In summary: Dark and creepy. Weird and confusing. I could not stop reading it. I am not sure I appreciate the abruptness of the ending that essentially shoved me out a side door of Blackheath and slammed it shut behind me without so much as a “how do you do,” but it wasn’t enough for me to deduct a star from the rest because whoa.