Book Review: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North | by Kristine Le

Normally, I’m more pulled to the young adult genre but this time, I decided to give adult fiction a try and picked up The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North. I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed this book because in the beginning I would fall asleep every time I began reading it and was not really into it at all. To really appreciate the story that North was trying to tell, I had to open mind to her style of writing and really think about what she was telling me and why she was telling me these things. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, is a story about a man, Harry August, and how every time he dies he is reborn again and relives his life with all the memories of his past life. The starts with Harry on the death bed of his eleventh life and is told that the world is going to end. The fact that the world is ending is no surprise, what Harry is told to find out is the why.

In my opinion, the writing is perfect to listen to in audiobook form because how it is structured. To compare the writing would be like reading a giant thought cloud. The voice behind the narrator, Harry, is so forward that it’s as if every thought in his head was directly translated onto the paper. Besides the writing, I really enjoyed Harry as a character and the way he approached certain situations. For instances, at one time, he goes to infiltrate a Russian security base and he does so with absolutely no plan in mind only that if he fails he’ll have to die and go through his boring childhood again before he can come back and try again. It is hard to understand without having read it but, Harry has a unique comedic element to him with how he makes his decisions. Another attribute I loved about Harry’s personality is that he is very blunt and forward with people, it allowed me to relate with him on a small scale.

Along with Harry’s blunt personality, I really enjoyed his “ability.” The ability to be reborn but to still keep all the memories of past lives is fascinating. The power and responsibility behind the ability may seem blatantly obvious-- don’t try to change the course of events-- but, the story offers, in my opinion, such a greater depth to the “blatantly obvious.”The complexity of the story was one of my favorite parts because it added some interesting possibilities for themes and life lessons such as: too much too soon is not always a positive, dreams and ambitions can sometimes do more harm than good, and be a good man first before becoming a brilliant one. Everything falls together in a satisfying, yet still shocking, end, which I thought was absolutely amazing.

Some issues I had with the book was the organization and progression the author chose to tell the story. I felt that the plot was very scatter at some points for instance, in the middle of a scene the author would take a break provide some information about his past life and then come back to path of the story. I think that if the organization had been planned out more then it would not have it so difficult to get into. Also, because the main character was an intellect it was hard to comprehend what he was talking about at times whenever he would discuss things within the science field.

In all, I enjoyed by first reading experience of adult fiction and would definitely pick up another one. On a 1-5 rating scale, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North: 4.5