Strange Deaths of the Last Romantic by Moses Yuriyvich Mikheyev

Strange Deaths of the Last Romantic Reviews

• 
  el

  ARC provided by publisher in exchange for an honest review
  
  there is so much bullshit contained in this tiny book that i needed to maintain an ongoing list as i was reading, just so i didn't miss anything major in my review. every chapter, i told myself, "there's no conceivable way this can get any worse." i have never had my predictive abilities so relentlessly tested. i finished this book not because i have ironclad will. no. my only motivation was this review.
  
  among the most flagrantly awful in strange deaths of the last romantic:
  
  • enough plot holes to sink a luxury steamship and each and every one is plugged up with what i can only call neon play-doh. this is performance art. satire. caricature. except it is completely serious. with every consecutive page, i struggled to put into words my dawning amazement. could a thing really be so terrible, without ever realizing how completely terrible it is? the answer is yes. yes it can.
  • wattpad-reminiscent prose that uses language like "feminine psychology," "inconceivable goddess," and "porn-star-looking woman."
  • a male main character named adam who, for the brief period where he's ten years old, talks like a five-year-old despite the narrative treating him like a flawless, science-inclined genius
  • unwarranted—and totally unpredictable—shifts between third person and first person to make executing the already haphazard plot more convenient for the author. for most of the novel, adam's chapters are told in first person, but in the third act they suddenly switch to third for no discernible reason.
  • adam claims he's liked women all his life, with the exception of ten-year-old anna, who he and his fifth grade buddies hate with a violence so uncalled for, it will make your skin crawl: "as a joke, i told the boys to pretend it was anna we were swinging the bat at when beating the shit out of that piñata." they hate her enough to cover a dead bird in paint and plant it in her lunchbox. when she essentially passes out on the floor after almost eating it, foaming at the mouth, he suddenly decides she's the most beautiful girl ever and vows he'll never hate another one again. at a school meeting, she and her parents immediately forgive adam. anna's father even pulls aside the boy who almost killed his daughter to let him know she's been mean to him all along not because he runs in a circle of bullies, but because she hates that he doesn't love her back. no other disciplinary action besides a one-week suspension is doled out. adam's mother walks him from that meeting with, no, not a single chastising word, but offers to buy him toys. thus, the "romantic" is born.
  • phonetic spelling to convey terrible, stereotypical portrayals of accents
  • flippant child abuse subplots
  • a good amount of fatphobia
  • plot convenience above all. there is not one single clever writing choice enclosed in this novel. if adam needs something, the novel rearranges itself to provide that something: "on a bench, i spotted an unattended macbook." i imagine you could fit the brainpower required to write a book like this in a single walnut shell.
  • random, slipshod references to the great classic literature adam reads—"i was reading love poems by pablo neruda when i saw the headlights of a car approaching"—so that we never forget for a moment that he is smart enough to pull off anything and win all the girls
  • far more in the way of sexism and misogyny. i am not exaggerating when i say every female character in this book exists to either be desired by or to submit to the men of this world. i have never seen such a blatant case of main character syndrome in a MAIN CHARACTER. adam's world was constructed to bend to his whim. it's almost like i'm playing a video game while surrounded by npcs. at times this feels so meta that the novel almost reads more like satire than serious published fiction. the women of this world take care of drunkard fathers and their daughters, quit their jobs to assume domestic roles in order to make their husbands more comfortable and happy, endure violence and creepy advances they're trained to treat as romantic, or else needlessly die in what i can only call gory, gratuitous torture porn. it's shameless.
  • in order to really demonstrate how appalling the writing in this is, i've collected several standout quotes to showcase (i really struggled to narrow this list down, there were so many phenomenal contenders):
  ○ "it was then that the romantic in me was fully formed. his birth was fueled by her rejection, by her hatred of me."
  ○ "a hand would brush against a girl's thigh, shaking whatever puritanical sentiment she once embraced."
  ○ "would she be it, or would she just be another wow in my life, a girl who exists not for me but in spite of me?"
  ○ "...her mouth smiled whenever she laughed."
  ○ "the alcohol is doing its damn job: making romances happen, one drink at a time."
  ○ "'no, i'm not a student here, lilyanne.' i said with an added element of the romantic. 'but after seeing such beauties on campus, i may just reconsider.' alice laughed whimsically..."
  ○ "she bent over, removed her thong, and began pressing her bare ass and pussy against my mouth," and, one page later: "she took my head in her arms and put it between her two breasts."
  ○ "her auburn hair bounced with angst along her slender shoulder line, settling near the thin straps of her blue dress that were pleading to be removed."
  ○ "she reached into her tote bag and brought out a lighter. 'a girl with a lighter?' i asked."
  ○ "prostitutes lined the streets like unforgettable eyesores. their lipstick and vivid makeup covered up whatever insecurities they had the night before."
  • egregiously racist writing. one black character's only lines consist of awful attempts at jamaican patois as he serves a white family. another is a homeless man who gives another character up in exchange for drugs and is then ruthlessly killed for it.
  • within seconds of seeing a girl: "in the twinkling of an eye, we were already something. i had already written her a poem, an epic of sorts. we were engaged to be married, and i had already marveled at her beauty a thousand times. lilyanne. she was two women in one. for me, she was lily and she was anne." like bro, just say you want to take thirteen wives in a small butter-churning community comprised of goats! say it with your chest, you spineless little nerd!
  • a disgusting sex worker subplot that includes a hawaiian woman who seemingly drops all sanitary/safety work measures to fuck a random guy, because everyone but a ten-year-old that one time wants adam immediately and effusively. she's not only subjected to his weird fetishism, she also has to endure the tired, "you don't belong in a place like this," spiel, because sex work is beneath beautiful women, right? only the most debased women partake in it, like a single touch to the pole renders them suddenly corrupt? but not the voyeuristic men—never them, they're exempt from any and all critiques.
  • dialogue i cannot be sure wasn't drafted using apple's predictive text feature:
  "'[...] i asked him about it and he just told me it didn't concern me.'
  'you ever ask him about it?'
  'i did once. [...]'"
  • block quotes from major works of literature/academia to convey ideas that the author apparently couldn't and, i would assume, to provide page filler
  
  there is nothing redeemable to be found in this book. i almost wish i could give it no stars and i now see why it was a struggle to publish. all i can say is...should have kept this one in the drafts.
• 
  Shelby

  Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for letting me read an advanced copy of this book, but I kind of wish this book didn’t exist.
  This wasn’t good. It really wasn’t. The entire time I felt as if this book was satire, as if the publisher lost a bet and was forced to publish this book. Sometimes it hurts to read bad books and this hurt.
  Plot holes? There’s tons!
  Pretentious writing? You’ve got it!
  Confusing shifts between first & third person? This author does that because even he gets confused at the plot holes and has to shift the narrative to make it make sense. (Spoiler: it didn’t work)
  
  The author also uses xenophobic spelling to convey accents & also just plain racist writing. Which again, makes me curious as to how this book was published!?!!
  I also found this book to be INCREDIBLY sexist and misogynistic, literally every female character only exists for the satisfaction of men. They treat harassment as romance, and bend to the every will of their drunk fathers or unappreciative partners.
  The author wrote this book like it was his incel manifesto & the dislike of women and how he expects them to be is clearly written in the 259 pages of complete garbage.
  Again I’m really hoping this guy is publishing the books he’s written as a social experiment.
  I’ll end this review from a quote in the authors bio that fits his pretentious writing style & also makes me hope he isn’t married.
  “He lives and loves in Los Angeles“
  :)
• 
  Isabel Criado

  Strange Deaths of the Last Romantic follow Adam, or Aristotle, as he begins to uncover that no matter how many times he dies he will always come back, appearing somewhere else intact by death. And with people following him, he never stays too long in one place, but then he meets a girl...
  
  I liked the idea of this novel. There could have been so many things to uncover, so many lives of Adam that the reader could see but he will never remember except for flashes here and there. It is the kind of book that could have been amazing. And I hate saying this because maybe it is amazing to someone else, but it fell flat to me.
  
  As soon as it starts, you know you're in for a ride. Not because it gives you what the description said it would, but because the writing is very pretentious from the start. I felt like I was reading the novel of the guy in my class who would write poetry about how lustful he was, do drugs because life was meaningles and hate you if you didn't know who Tarantino was. I don't know if you've ever met someone like that but I have. I dated him. And this writing reminded me of everything wrong about him.
  
  Suicide is touched upon a lot, and more than a surrealist plot that makes you imagine a magical world, it is used in a very different way. I would say it is very romanticized. Adam admired the gun he carries around, he finds killing himself addicting. And it just feels wrong. And beyond what he feels, this books is not entirely through his point of view. It made me dizzy by the structure of it all. Chapters are divided in very weird ways; sometimes it'll cut through the same chapter just to change perspective and from a protagonist view to an omniscient narrator. It is messy and you don't quite understand who is who until very later on. Too late.
  
  And of course the book is about how romantic Adam is. But I didn't find him romantic at all. He would put any girl on a pedestal, talk about their beauty and how much he wanted them. His relationships never left the "I want you" stage, especially the main relationship in the book. I felt no love, just teenagers being horny. And I hate saying that because I wanted to love this book. I wanted to love the romance in it. I wanted it to be the next Romeo and Juliet. But it wasn't.
  
  And then there's the idea that Adam can never die. I believe it would have worked a thousand times better if it was left as a mystery, if he didn't have the typical bad guy after him. It would have worked better if this book was simply about life, and how we want to escape it, than a tale of escaping from big brother. It took all the magic right out of the novel, and it made me lose interest in Adam, because was this story even about him? Especially if we know there were others? (And many others from what we get to understand?)
  
  I truly believe the author is capable of creating something amazing. I just think he tried to tackle too many things. They themselves say that they don't find themselves sticking to one genre. But even not choosing one genre has its structure. I hope to read future work of them, see how they grow. There was great potential here.
• 
  Kerri Kalakay

  I found the Strange Death of the Last Romantic very strange and unique. It had a touch of multiple genres a little suspense, a little science fiction and a little romance. It kinda gave me the vibe of a science fiction version of Romeo and Juliet. I was very interested right from the start. Adam’s story was quite interesting. Thank you net galley for my arc,
• 
  Thushara

  The premise and the cover is what intrigued me to this book but unfortunately, this book just turned out not for me. I felt the writing was quite pretentious and disliked it. An amazing idea and to me, poorly executed
• 
  Benjamin Evans

  Part One: Introduction
  
  I have been reading Moses for over seven years. I am Ben. Yeah, that Ben.
  
  Two-
  Star-
  Review-
  Fame
  Ben.
  
  To begin my signature “mediocre” style of writing, I will begin with a confession:
  
  To be honest, I never know what Moses is up to. He likes to play jokes, philosophize, subvert the herd, in a word, he likes to be a crafty blighter. He brings up ideas such as deceiving people into the truth at the beginning of a book (The Hack). What am I supposed to make of that? I don’t have the time or skill to discern the truth from the deception!
  
  In one of the first blogs I read, Moses described his writing project as, in part, an endeavor to create a maze around himself by which he would weed out those of the “crowd”, the boring people, or those who did not truly care. He wanted to be misunderstood, by some people at least (some Kierkegaard or Mark 4:12 kind of dynamic, perhaps). Moses the real person deliberately removes himself in likeness from Moses as he is revealed through his writings. I have long since lost the original blog, but I hope my memory is being faithful here…
  
  As I have said before, Moses likes attention. Think of how many hours have already been spent reading this book, reviewing it, or reading the reviews. He writes songs and pays for them to be marketed. He tried getting famous in Hollywood. And, trying to impart his “inky” mark on posterity, he’s doggedly kept up his writing these past seven years. He says he is doing it to try to help people, but that’s hard to believe. Maybe he just likes watching the response.
  
  And so, for all I know, Moses may have written Strange Deaths purely to impress some girl with a corn allergy, or get back vindictively at a girl who didn’t love him by writing a corny book and getting a bunch of people to read nonsense bs dedicated to her, like some twist on donating to charity in her name. He sure is a man of grand actions. He’s sent roses, dedicated songs, and given pearls to practical strangers.
  
  Moses thinks he’s hot stuff, that he’s got looks and brains. He’s a nurse and has studied philosophy and theology. To my pleasure, he puts both these experiences to work in Strange Deaths. The nurse’s vocabulary makes the reading better; sputum is a word I won’t long forget. Philosophy makes the book complicated. With references to Kierkegaard, Friedrich Schiller, Aristotle, and, potentially, Alasdair McIntyre as well as themes of resurrection and an Adam who is “cursed”, I wonder if Moses does not have some grandiose philosophical message he tries to tell through the book. Maybe that is even the main purpose. I am familiar with the Bible and can look up a Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry with the best of them, but I am no match for Mikheyev’s titanic intelligence in these matters.
  
  Perhaps I am reading into things too much. Maybe Moses is just trying to write fiction plain and simple. That would be rather disappointing to me. I do not read Moses for his simplicity or his rare moments of good fiction. I read him for his ambition, his big ideas, his humor, and the complexity that only Moses Mikheyev can deliver now that I’ve been reading him for a while.
  
  To be honest, I think Moses is better at writing blogs and essays than writing novels or making music. Blogs and essays, though, don’t capture the public eye as much as novels do. Maybe that’s why he writes them or maybe he thinks there is a beauty only plots can achieve. But I’m a weirdo and would typically rather read a textbook about surveying or a volume of 17th century poetry than a novel. Novels at times are intimidating for me. I can spend an hour on a classic short poem and not understand much. A good novel seems impenetrable by comparison. This is another avenue of misunderstanding.
  
  I seem destined to misunderstand Strange Deaths. Moses has read Wittgenstein, and he knows how difficult communication is in general. He has a grasp on the concept of ineffability. And so, maybe misunderstanding is the best any of us can do. That seems to be the case with the other reviewers at least. Resigned to my fate that I will never “get” the book, what I wish to bring the readers of this review, especially Moses, is a spectacular misunderstanding of the text. By this I do not mean that I will try to misunderstand. By no means. What I do mean is that I want to create a spectacle.
  
  If Moses is sitting at the holy of holies within a maze of his own devising, watching the security cameras. I do not want to be one of the mass of zombies loitering outside the entrance to the labyrinth, bumping into each other and getting nowhere. No. Through the crowd, running at top speed, yodeling perhaps, I want to enter the outer courts where few have gotten, and careen face first into a wall of the maze, then collapse to the floor in a gory mass. I want Moses to laugh loudest at my mistakes, not anyone else’s. My dead body will add to the maze. I, too, am vain.
  
  
  This review will go further than a general assessment of the quality of the book. I want to discuss the content and the potential meaning it gives, to be critical as scholars are of classic books of the past. My ideas may be highly flawed here and very much in the germ state, but the scholarship has to start somewhere. I may even do what Socrates accuses Gorgias of, that is, making the weaker argument the stronger. Perhaps future students of Mikheyev can look back on my review and be inspired to come up with crazy ideas of their own about this book. It would probably be a waste of their time, but, hey, they might learn something, who knows. I know I have through this process.
  
  Part Two: The Title and Names.
  
  The most important word of the title is “Romantic”. From here we can begin to form an idea of some of the philosophy and literature that Strange Deaths might be concerned with from around the year 1800. Aesthetics, Schlegel, Wordsworth, other German dudes have a role to play in this field. Beauty and truth are related, man. The individual is important, and the restricting of himself by himself produces a sort of majesty within the self. Adam’s killing himself, going against the instinct of self-preservation, over and over is something that Romantics may have appreciated. They like their art to be organic wholes, and Moses seems to share this, describing his work as a monster which talks to him. They eschew the “murder[ing] to dissect” of modern science, advocating a return to nature and wonder. One of the main antagonists is a (admittedly German) scientist of questionable morality. Kant is a major influence on Romantic Philosophy, and I know Moses used to write about Kant in his old blogs. One of the characters, Fred Schillersdorf, conjured up in me recollection of Friedrich Schiller, German poet and philosopher associated, if not aligned, with Romanticism. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia entry, Novalis wrote,
  
  “by giving a higher meaning to the ordinary, a mysterious appearance to the ordinary, the dignity of the unacquainted to that of which we are acquainted, the mere appearance of infinity to finite, I romanticize them.”
  
  Adam, meeting Lilyanne, imagines her as if he had known her for a long time, giving the “unacquainted” an air of being acquainted. This is straight-up romantic stuff. Moses, or shall I say, the monster in his head, does the same thing to the character Adam, endowing a human with afterlife, giving the finite an appearance of infinity. Indeed, for the Romantic, Nature herself has a spirit and by giving Adam his mutation, Nature romanticizes Adam. Not sure if that means anything, but there you go. I am not saying that Moses himself as author of Strange Deaths is a romantic in the philosophical sense. Mikheyev does not like his work to fit in any widely-accepted genre, and far be it from me to classify Moses himself into any camp as it were.
  
  What makes Adam the last romantic? That is rather puzzling to me. Moses is sometimes given to exaggeration, and so perhaps Moses merely means there aren’t many left. Moses, or should I say the monster, perhaps also means that Adam is the last because of his alleged immortality.
  
  “Adam Micah” is a name of significance. According to the back cover, Adam is “cursed”, drumming up a connection with the Adam of Genesis. Adam is the first man, and Adam Micah is the “last” romantic. The curse is that he cannot die, a complete flip on the Adam of Genesis who was cursed to die. “Micah” means “who is like God?” Adam, meaning man, and Micah are both Hebraic names. Moses perhaps intends his readers to ask the question “who is like God?” among the characters of the book. Because the book is written by Moses, who practically worships women, I immediately thought the godlike one would have to be female. Indeed, as a bright reviewer reminded me, Lilyanne (I think) is described as an “inconceivable goddess”. Jesus is “the second Adam”, so perhaps Adam is supposed to be compared with Jesus. He dies and comes back to life for one, but his character is far removed from God. The quotes from Kierkegaard steer me in another direction: perhaps all that Moses means by god is the thing or person in whom one puts faith in connection with K’s leap of faith. Lilyanne puts faith in Adam at the end at great risk to herself. The cost is part of the having of the thing-paid-for in the spiritual realm. Reminds me of Mark 8: “he who loses his life for my sake will find it”.
  
  “Markus” means dedicated to Mars, and Moses has a sister of the name Mars.
  
  Schillersdorf dies with Schillerian dignity, also wants to determine his destiny and fails. The song that Adam’s mother sings has something to do with destiny being worthless.
  
  The Alice in Wonderland joke was predictable for me who had read The Hack.
  
  Mary-Lou finds an empty tomb, like some Marys in the gospels.
  
  Part Three: Other stuff.
  
  Moses used to write blogs and poems mentioning a green-eyed girl. It was no surprise to me that the heroine of the book has green eyes, too. Maybe girl-who-doesn’t-eat-popcorn has green eyes. That would not surprise me. Btw, folks, Moses really did write his own Hershey Kiss notes for some girl. I only know this because of my vast collection of Moses’s blogs. I like that he included it. I typically like real-life stories better than fiction. Sometimes people are more creative when communicating with actual people rather than when they write characters. The real world is more interesting to me. Hahaha evil villain laugh.
  
  I like the joke on page 78, line 3.
  
  Moses seems to like writing books with scenes of naked men at the beginning. Reminds me of Genesis. Maybe he is comparing himself to God. Maybe that is the answer to “Micah”: Moses is like God.
  
  Part 4: Response to critics
  I agree with a lot of what the negative reviewers have said. There are plot holes, the writing isn’t beautiful in most of it, and I can see where people get an idea of sexism. I think the chapters about Adam’s childhood are possibly the worst. I agree with renee that Adam is boring, but Moses has written in the past about a “basic principle that all people are boring”, so it fits in a way haha. I think in some ways the storytelling is better in The Hack, but with Crowell I agree that the premise of the book is good, and I think Moses is being ambitious here, which I like.
  
  Elisa dislikes the line of advice that Anna’s father gives Adam: “she hates you for not loving her back” I, on the other hand, find it to be profound. See Exodus 33. God only allows Moses (of the Bible) to see his back rather than his face, lest he die. Perhaps Mikheyev says so of women--that women want men to be satisfied with whatever they are comfortable allowing you to see of them. For a special few women, a great enough revelation may spell a man’s death, or in Adam’s case, deaths. We must not forget the significance of Adam’s last name: who is like God? I suspect that for Mikheyev women are. Some may think my analysis is flawed, that the author didn’t mean “back” to be taken anatomically. I’d have you consider this: as a nurse and writer of lewd scenes, Moses Mikheyev is always thinking about anatomy. Did you really think the “popcorn” from the dedication was literal popcorn, not some part of Moses’s anatomy? You’ll admit, you had your suspicions, too. If you’re not convinced yet, Anna’s father pats Adam on the literal back directly before giving him this advice.
  
  Elisa was far too hard on Moses when she says you could fit the brainpower required to write SDLR in a walnut shell. I should know, I have a kitty-cat brain, and I cannot write such a book. Mitchell thinks the “my kitten” endearment is cringey. I take it as a credit to my species.
  
  Renee says she’s never getting near anything by Moses again. Alright, good! You’re leaving less competition for me to win Moses’s attention!
  Moses is lambasted for his poor writing of romance scenes. I don’t know why he still tries to write sex scenes. Maybe it’s his way of letting out the repression, I have no idea. I’ll say I don’t enjoy them either, but I have news for you critics out there: Moses is a virgin. He writes on page 112 of Rants on Love, “an uncontaminated Christian virgin practicing abstinence until marriage--just like me” I have never gotten an invitation to any wedding in which Moses is the groom, so I can say with some authority that Moses is not married. That means he still hasn’t done it--just like me, I might add.
  
  Elisa doesn’t like the block quotes that Moses uses. I love them. I think that Mr. Smyth was my favorite character in the whole book. It was a great scene.
  
  This is all I have right now. I have spent too much time on this already, more time than actually reading the book, probably. I don’t think it’s particularly good or that I made the spectacle that I set out to make. Merry Christmas.
  
• 
  Violetta

  I cannot believe I’m dnf-ing a book at only 10% but I...am at my absolute limit.
  This book is like an episode of Riverdale but with even less self-awareness.
  Listen to this for a minute:
  Adam is a good boy who respects women until the 5th grade when he decides to put a dead bird in a girl’s sandwich. This girl doesn’t notice somehow and actually takes a bite of the bird sandwich - she’s screaming, feathers are flying out of her mouth, and the cafeteria is in chaos. Former woman-respecter and self-proclaimed “class romantic” Adam realizes that making the leap from respecting women to outright sociopathic behavior was a bad move and vows to respect women again. Ok.
  So he goes to apologize to the girl’s parents and decides to add in that, for the record, she’s mean to him, prompting the most bizarre conversation with her father about how, essentially, girls are weird and pretend to hate boys that they like. This stale, age-old misogyny didn't bother me half as much as the fact that this man took the time to even entertain his nonsense after what he did. This was a traumatic incident, sir, why are you boys-will-be-boys-ing with your daughter's bully? Does this exist in an alternate reality where eating a bird carcass is just a silly schoolboy prank? I was baffled by this family's lack of anger.
  
  To make things worse, his mother offers to buy him a toy right after. What is wrong with all of these people?
  
  I tried to overlook all of this and press on, but it only got worse.
  
  After mom dies in a car accident (of course she does), Adam is placed in a foster home that is described as, not even joking, “the epitome of trailer trash existence.” His foster family are basically illiterate bumpkins who hate that Adam likes to read and subject him to the unbearable torture of cartoons and poptarts. Adam just isn't like other boys, you know? He likes books! And vegetables!
  
  If you didn't know that he is very special and smart and unlike other boys, lines like this really seal the deal:
  
  “I had checked out a collection of Virgil’s poetry from the library. He had picked up the text and stared at it with disgust. He couldn’t pronounce a single word correctly. He threw the text down and beat me instead. It was easier to beat my ass than to read Virgil.”
  
  IT WAS EASIER TO BEAT MY ASS THAN TO READ VIRGIL.
  
  Do I need to keep going? Do I really need to keep going? If you're an unfulfilled man who relies heavily on the ego-boost that comes with fondly remembering that you peaked in elementary school, this one's for you!
  
  Maybe it gets better later - normally, I'd press on to find out before writing a review - but this book was a genuine trial. I cannot IMAGINE the book getting better. This first 10% was so grating, juvenile, and shallow that it was unreadable.
  Thanks to Netgalley for giving me an e-ARC in exchange for a review.
  
  
  Tws: suicide, death of a parent, abuse, incoherent nonsense
• 
  Denice Langley

  Well...strange would probably be in every descriptive phrase used to review this book....but, that's not always a bad thing. After all, the title warns us to look for strange. The story line is unique, so unique it really does not fit any genre label. It definitely has elements of scifi, romance, fiction, a little thriller and probably lots more that you might see that I didn't list. But, again, it was definitely not a bad thing.
  
  The story of Adam/ Aristotle and Lilyanne follows no clearly defined romantic path. Adam "returns" from death each time so has no fear of dying. He has an unhealthy fascination with suicide as a means of leaping from one life to the next. He cannot predict where he will be when he "returns" so changes his name to Aristotle. Why? Because then he can google himself and find out what happened in his prior life, since he loses that part of his memory with the leap. Still with me? Now the path twists...
  Adam "returns" because he has a genetic code that gives him that ability. He meets a girl, Lilyanne, who has the same code and they fall in love. But remember, when they leap, they do not know where they will land so must search for each other each time. In the interest of keeping this strange, Adam and Lilyanne have a group of rich men looking for them also. They want to figure out how to keep from dying.
  
  So, yes, this is strange. But it is also totally different from anything you may have read before. It may not be the next classic in the making but it was definitely worth the reading time to see where the story would take me next. If you need something different...and strange... to read, you have found it!
• 
  Sam

  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
  #StrangeDeathsOfTheLastRomantic
  #StrangeDeaths
  #MosesYuriyvichMikheyev
  
  Pulled me in right away. So easy to read. Simple writing (a good thing), simple concepts (also a good thing) and a few poems (of course this is about a romantic).
  
  Almost like four stories in one. Adams early life before his first death (not a spoiler, um, the title). His college years. His life after his great love. And the epilogue. Together these stories put together make a lovely book. It crosses genres. As the author himself says in his notes at the books end "I have a tendency to write the unexpected, the peculiar, the strange." I would definitely recommend this book to others.
  
  I will definitely be in search of other books by this author. If you love books of all sorts of genres and you can handle a little romance, take a look at this one. You won't regret it.
  
  Thanks to #NetGalley and the author himself (I believe he self published this book, I only just discovered) for a free copy of this book to review. As always, all thoughts are my own.
  
  #bookstagram #booknerds #bookworm #booklover #bookdragon #bookrecommendation #readalot #ilovereading #inkdrinker #bookreview #lovetoread #readingseason #arcs #advancedreadingcopy #arc #librarymouse #booknerdbookreviews #bookaddict #bookaholic #booknerd
• 
  Suanne

  This is a genre-breaking book with elements of thriller, science fiction, New Adult, and even romance. Which may or may not be a good thing. A boy commits suicide, but doesn’t die—he simply is transported to another location—sans clothing. He soon learns to use his ability to get out of difficult situations. Unfortunately, every time he does this he loses some of his memories of his past. He names himself Aristotle and writes his own obituaries.
  
  He eventually learns that he has a genetic abnormality that allows him to to this, an ability that some unscrupulous people—rich men who want their lineage to be perpetuated ad infinitum and scientists—want to harness his genetics.
  
  Aristotle falls in love with Lilyanne who is a carrier of the same recessive genetic mutation. Aristotle dies one more time and loses Lilyanne.
  
  Suicide is romanticized and Aristotle is “addicted” to killing himself and seems to have neither any particular emotional revulsion about repeatedly killing himself or significant psychological trauma from doing so. There are some sex scenes that really aren’t X-rated, but also aren’t in keeping with the rest of the story; they do, however, add to the New Adult genre.
  
  Though there is a romance and Aristotle is billed as “the last romantic,” I didn’t find him particularly romantic. His idea of romance seems to be stuck in the early adolescent phase.
• 
  Mandy Hazen

  This book is INSANE. Total modern day Romeo and Juliet. But plot twist - Romeo is cursed where he cannot die. There is a whole bunch of extra caste stuff going on that has a total True Blood/X-men vibe and even had some Notebook thrown in. I know right you’re probably thinking I am insane. Love story cursed from the start and mutants being chased down by a bigger agency. This book is legit packed. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
• 
  renée

  I refuse to finish this book, but I’ll review it anyway, only to warn people not to read it. It’s terrible. I’ll start with the only good thing in this book, the very thing that made me choose it in NetGalley’s shelves: the initial idea of it. From the summary, it sounded like an interesting thriller with a boring heterosexual romance I could ignore, or even grow into liking a bit. A tiny little bit.
  
  I couldn’t have been more wrong. First of all, Adam, the main character, is boring. So boring and dull it hurts: he isn’t funny, nor he is mysterious, nor caring and he does passes as sweet (or, at least, it’s what the author expects to portray), but in a way that’s just creepy.
  
  Besides, I can’t help but add that the book and its protagonist are painfully sexist. I’m going to have a wild guess that the author is the same. I’ll try to list everything wrong that I’ve picked on this book within only 14% of it.
  
  - The first moment where Adam claims he became a romantic was when he played a prank on Anna, one of his classmates, and he almost died. He hated her guts, but after that, she suddenly became beautiful in his eyes.
  - We’ll still talk about poor Anna for a little while. The boys hate her, and they are disgustingly and excessively violent, to the point where Adam tells that, during her birthday party, there was piñata and their response was to pretend the piñata was Anna herself, and they beat it up. No, you’re not hearing it wrong. A bunch of fourth grade boys were in a party anf fantasizing about beating their classmate up, quite literally like a piñata.
  - Then, as if just that wasn’t enough, the boys felt like playing a prank on Anna would be fun, so one of them suggests putting a dead bird next to her lunchbox, and Adam not only supports it, but suggests that they also paint the animal’s corpse with red paint they’d steal from the art teacher’s office! Poor Anna, who wasn’t paying attention at the time, took a bite of the bird, and started to choke. For a moment, I’d assumed he’d feel guilt when he said “I thought we–no, I– had killed her”, but then, he says “he saw the tragedy of his own existence” and that he “emerged out of the chaos a new creation, a new man”. Because of course, that situation was about him.
  - It’s also worth saying that he kept describing the lunch lady as ‘large’ and talking about her performing the Heimlich maneuver on Anna as if it was some kind of sick joke. He’d almost killed his classmate, but the only time he refers to her as ‘poor Anna’ is when “in between abdominal thrusts, poor Anna struggled to break free from the large woman’s embrace”.
  - Anna’s parents were absolutely okay with what happened! It’s actually written in the book that during the meeting, her father spent the entire time winking and smiling his way! And after that, he took Adam aside and told him that Anna “talked a lot about him at home”, and said the line that Adam described as “probably the best explanation of feminine psychology he had ever heard”, finding it “so simple, and yet so profound.”
  - “If she hates you, she hates you for not loving her back.” That was it. He said it to the boy who’d just almost killed his daughter. It’s so disgusting, the implication that, when women say no, or show that they’re repelled, it’s because they’re playing hard to get or something amongst those lines. If someone seems to hate you, just leave them alone!
  - And, unfortunately, this isn’t the last sexist line in the book. Soon after, out of Adam’s POV, which was a relief to me before I realised that the main character was different, but the author who was writing him remained, I found the lines: > “As for Lilyanne, she could never do anything wrong in her father’s eyes. From the first time he looked into her eyes, he knew he’d hold her tiny hands until she grew into adulthood while his own aged with wrinkles. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for his two girls. From cameras to tracking devices, from expensive security systems to thorough background checks on every babysitter, Mr. Beloshinski oversaw it all. Some perceived him as paranoid; he preferred to see himself as being intelligently cautious.”
  > “…her husband refused to let her work”
  > “she learned not to argue with her husband”
  - Besides the several sexist parts and plot points, the characters felt inconsistent to me, such as Adam revealing that he’s finally realised life wasn’t fair after being beaten up by the man who adopted him, which would be fair if, before that, he hadn’t lost his mother, spent weeks in a coma, and almost killed Anna. I find this very enough for one to notice the unfairness of life. Adam’s also extremely cocky, acting like a child genius despite being one of the most boring characters I’ve ever seen, a creepy, sexist asshole who cannot deal with a ‘no’ as answer to save his life–not that saving his life is something he’d need, all things considered–and a bully. He’s immature as fuck a character who, as the writing style suggests, was supposed to be the nerdy one who reads a lot and has a higher level of comprehension than his peers.
  
  In conclusion, this book has no redeeming qualities. The only thing that kept me going was this review, and not even that kept me going for long. I’m never even getting near anything by Moses Yuriyvich Mikheyev again, ever.
• 
  Mark Alpheus

  It was a strange romance indeed.
  
  I really love it when books just does not stay in one genre. I could say this book was perfect for me in that aspect. I LOVE how strange this book is, I truy enjoyed my time reading it. The writing is okay, the pacing- is EXPLOSIVE. Fast-paced and provoking.
  
  Got the e-arc from netgalley. Thank you publisher!
• 
  Ruxandra Grrr

  Wow, already, just 9% through and there are so many woman- and girl-hating instances concentrated in a few pages that I can't even. Aristotle or Adam or whatever his name is calls himself a romantic, but by that, he appears to mean an obsessive guy who fetishizes the idea of love and romance and who fetishizes women themselves. Just take a look at these quotes:
  
  

  As a joke, I told boys to pretend it was Anna we were swinging the bat at when beating the shit out of that pinata. Let me be the first to say: the pinata didn't last long

  
  
  Not to mention perpetuating harmful stereotypes about how girls act one way and mean another thing.
  
  

  "Sir", I asked confused, "but why is Anna always mean to me?" "One of these days you'll figure girls out." He patted me on the back. "You, class romantic, you," he added with a wink and a smile. "If she hates you, she hates you for not loving her back," he added before taking off. It was probably the best explanation of feminine psychology I had ever heard. It was so simple, and yet so profound. I never forgot it

  
  
  So not only the 'hero' 'makes a joke' by putting a dead bird dipped in paint in a girl's lunch (and she eats it) and traumatized her, but then her father winks at him and encourages him to 'love her back'. It's sick. And then, there's this, relating to the same incident.
  
  

  Although I was dragged away from that lunchroom and into the principal's office, the birth of a romantic had already taken place. I had been baptized in the red-and-white saliva of a little girl; I emerged out of the chaos a new creation, a new man

  
  
  Basically, the girl's trauma is treated without any empathy, guilt or shame by the protagonist. Instead, her suffering is furthering his 'development' into, I suspect, a huge fucking creep.
  
  The author never once denounces or acknowledges the sick behavior of his character.
  
  The next stage of becoming a romantic: trying to manipulate another girl to like him by carving their names in a desk and then pretending it was her that did it.
  
  

  Emerald seemed utterly repulsed by the idea. I can still remember the look on her face. She began hating me. It was then that the romantic in me was fully formed. His birth was fuelled by her rejection, by her hatred of me.

  
  
  Sounds healthy *eyeroll* and romantic.
  
  And I could go on and on, because nothing works in this. It is not a romance, the character is not a romantic, in the pop culture sense or the artistic & literary movement sense. And it could have been interesting a.f. if the book had been an actual exploration of what we perceive to be romantic and is damaging and idolizing and unreal and fetishizing and how putting someone on a pedestal is shitty and not loving. But it wasn't that either.
  
  While I was reading, I was just talking to it in an annoyed fashion, and even though I stopped reading at 20% for about a year (and the review so far is from that early stage), I am *so* glad I continued. BECAUSE OF THE AUTHOR'S NOTE.
  
  Okay, so at the end, which feels very cathartic to me right now, because I was able to finish this book and learn some stuff from it, even if I hated it, learned some stuff about writing in general. I am going to quote the Author's Note now. Everybody (by which I mean the optimistically estimated 2 people who read this review, maybe) ready?
  
  Lilyanne isn't even that great. She's like a romantic fog: she's everywhere and nowhere and all at the same time. She's a ghost, I wrote her that way intentionally. You see, like all egomaniacal writers out there, I began writing this book thinking I was going to write the next great American novel. About 150 pages into the manuscript, I realized that I was writing complete and utter shit.
  
  BTW, the book cover, designed by his sister, Mars, is quite beautiful, so that was a thing I liked. And also I applaud Moses Yuriyvich Mikheyev's vulnerability and self-awareness.
  
  He then goes on to say how people like romantic shit - but this is nothing like a romance, so he didn't do his homework there. And then he says this COMPLETELY SAD thing:
  
  Nobody loves real people - most of us are boring and awful and annoying. But a lot of us would get behind an imaginary being that's always beautiful and pleasant and pretty and whatever.
  
  And I couldn't disagree more with that. Love is not that. I could go on an on with discussing this, because nothing works here. But what I weirdly wants to say is that I hope he actually finds love. In the real sense. And also that he keeps working at writing... If it's something he loves, it is something he can learn how to improve upon.
  
  I don't feel bad about this review, the author's note urges people to leave reviews even if they hated the book, so here it was!
  
  Peace out.
  
  
• 
  Melissa

  
  
  
  This book was provided for review by NetGalley. Thank you!
  
  Trigger Warnings: Suicide, glorification of suicide, death of a parent, murder, child abuse, references to drug use, animal death
  
  Adam cannot die.
  
  Whenever he tries, he wakes up in a new place with only the memory of his name. Any other memories are fleeting and usually lost when he dies again. Adam believes himself alone and unique but he is not. There are more like him and there are those who want to be like him. And they will stop at nothing to accomplish their goals.
  
  My many thanks to NetGalley for approving my request for this book. I generally do not regret my decisions to request an ARC but I deeply regret this one.
  
  I will be honest dear reader, Strange Deaths of the Last Romantic is not a good book. There were times that as I was reading it I was amazed it had even made it to publication. There is fanfiction on A03, fanfiction.net, or even WattPad that is better written and with characters infinitely more likeable.
  
  The basic plot surrounding Strange Deaths… is, I admit, an intriguing one. The opening scene is quite strong and really draws you in but just as quickly descends in to ridiculousness. The plot holes are numerous and many of them could have easily been fixed with some kind of real editing work. Problems and conflicts are solved with little more than a waved hand and are often never mentioned again.
  
  The writing for Strange Deaths is something I could go on about at length simply because it is so bad. Clunky prose and stilted conversations abound. The manner in which Adam describes Lilyanne (or any female character honestly) reminds me very much of the examples from Reddit’s ‘menwritingwomen’ board highlighting what NOT to do. At times I wondered if Mikheyev actually pulled ideas from there.
  
  Unfortunately, the characters that populate Strange Deaths aren’t much better. Adam (or Aristotle) comes to romanticize his suicides. He spends paragraphs admiring the gun he carries and even admits to finding killing himself addicting. His viewpoints on women – along with every other male character – are quite misogynistic. The few female characters falling in to either the “goddess” or “whore” trope with no in-between. The women are very one dimensional and almost every one practically falls all over Adam soon after meeting him.
  
  As I said above, Strange Deaths is not a good book. Clunky and awkward writing, plot holes the size of the Titanic, strange and abrupt shifts in narrator, and deeply unlikeable characters make this an eye rolling read. It is not often that I advise my readers to stay away and NOT read a particular book. This is one of the few times I make an exception. Head on over to fanfiction.net or A03, I know without a doubt you will find something better there.
• 
  Teresa

  Okay, it took me along time to read this book, “Strange Deaths of the Last Romantic “ by Moses Yuriyvich Mikheyev. And after finishing it, I still don’t know how to feel. It ( as the author wrote and I quote from the book) is a”descent into darkness, death and disillusionment”. The characters especially the protagonist, Aristotle-Zurr-McIntyre questions God, religion, life, death, memories, love and everything except the depressing act of suicide. Ari’s got that one down pat. The author writes what it’s like for Ari to use the same gun and romanticizes suicide:
  “The gun felt special to me. It reminded me not of death—-as it would have done most people— but of life. To me, the gun in my hand, and the bullet in the chamber, reminded me of the frailty of fickle existence.”
  This could be a trigger (forgive the pun) for some readers. I just didn’t like reading about it constantly.
  The incidents in this story surrounds the sad life of Ari and his existence and love for Lilyanne Beloshinski; but this book is not just a love story. The author stated in his notes that he doesn’t like to write in just one genre; so this book involves love, science fiction, paranormal and mystery—-all rolled in a very messy package. And I guess this is the problem. I was on an emotional roller coaster and therefore had to take breaks from reading because the book was all over the place and then would have Ari ( a character that I really liked) contemplate blowing his brains out. I was left mortified and angry. Characters like Jon Smyth and the Wisher did not help. Dr. Bonn’s character was a disappointment as well. Lilyanne, I think was thrown in as a love interest, but she had so much more to give to this story if only the author would let her speak and not become a cliche muse.
  
  I think this author has great talent, but he might need to find his own voice and choose one or a couple of genres to write this novel; instead of all of them.
  I would recommend this book if you like reading unusual occurrences involving death and human behavior with a likable protagonist; just be warned of the depressing nature the protagonist engages in to escape life without hope. I received a free copy of this book and voluntarily reviewed it.
• 
  Blagica

  I was very late to this party with this imaginative story but the romantic in me loved it.
  This is a genre-breaking book with elements of thriller, science fiction, New Adult, and even romance. Which may or may not be a good thing. A boy commits suicide, but does not die—he simply is transported to another location—sans clothing. He soon learns to use his ability to get out of difficult situations. Unfortunately, every time he does this, he loses some of his memories of his past. He names himself Aristotle and writes his own obituaries. Awesome concept, right? I at first could not wrap my head around this one but I managed to enjoy it. I also would love to be able to control my own fate like that.
  
  As the story unfolds, he learns that he has a genetic abnormality that allows him to have this, an ability that some unscrupulous people—rich men who want their lineage to be perpetuated ad infinitum and scientists—want to harness his genetics.
  
  Aristotle falls in love with Lilyanne who is a carrier of the same recessive genetic mutation. Aristotle dies one more time and loses Lilyanne. That was heart breaking and I almost stopped right there. My issue with this story is that suicide is romanticized and Aristotle is “addicted” to killing himself. He seems to have neither any particular emotional revulsion about repeatedly killing himself or significant psychological trauma from doing so. There are some sex scenes that really aren’t X-rated, but also aren’t in keeping with the rest of the story; they do, however, add to the New Adult genre.
  
  Though there is a romance and Aristotle is billed as “the last romantic,” I didn’t find him particularly romantic. His idea of romance seems to be stuck in the early adolescent phase. I do like the come of age feel to it and will actually read more from this author in the future just to see what imaginative story comes next.
  
  
• 
  dee (andie) 🕺🏼✨

  * free copy provided for a review*
  
  2.5
  
  this is probably the only problematic book I will ever rate higher than 1 star. if you want to know my reasoning, feel free to keep reading.
  
  I am so sad that this book was problematic because in my opinion it had so much potential. I loved so many parts of it and the ending was heartbreaking and amazing.
  
  I don't think that it was as problematic as other reviewers are making it out to be but there were clear themes of racism, misogyny, fatphobia, and a few others. for example, the author decided to imitate a black jamaican man's accent and dialect using phonetic language which just sounded awful and mocking. not to mention the stereotypical and not at all related to culture names he had used. he also referred to one character as "the asian woman," as if her race was the only characteristic thing about her. among other things, people of color here had eurocentric features (like dark skin but blue eyes?) and all disappeared/died quickly when they stopped being useful to the plot, which was just awful.
  
  the writing wasn't bad, even if the majority of readers on here seem to think it was. yes, there were a few mistakes in grammar or wording that sounded very bad, but that's all I noticed. there were no weird point of view switches, like one person mentioned either.
  
  if you want to know more about why this book is problematic, there are many reviews on goodreads that explain it better than I ever could and give examples.
  
  overall, I am so immensely disappointed by how the lack of education, empathy, and probably a fair amount of prejudice ruined all of this, because the idea of this- the premise, the characters, the ending- were all so, so wonderful.
  
  in the end, don't give books that contain stuff like this attention. I wish this had been better and more sensitively written but it wasn't so there's no point in dwelling on it. that's it.
• 
  Auds

  I cannot put into words how would I describe this awesome creation. I did not expect anything much but I was given a ton of beautiful thoughts and excitement.
  At first, I was confused as this novel—Strange Deaths of the Last Romantic- is narrated from a different perspective. But as soon as you dive deep into the story, you will soon realize that all of it was part of a beautiful novel.
  Adam Micah—the protagonist- is just a normal 10-year-old boy from a random stranger`s perspective. But he is an Orphan. No one is there for him, no one cared for him when he needed it the most. That is why he ended up committing suicide. He just wants to end his suffering and pain, little did he know his death is not the end but a beginning. Leading to a wonderful journey and falling in love.
  This is a great novel but one thing bothers me. The protagonist got used to committing suicide to escape reality or bad situations. He eventually got rid of the habit but suicide is still a crime and never an answer to any problems. And this can affect some of the readers. We have different perspectives/beliefs in life but I know for sure that suicide is never an option. Nonetheless, this mutant theme novel is well written.
• 
  ragan

  honestly, i don't care enough to make this into a full fledge paragraphs, so we are going to go with bullet points.
  - there is enough plot holes to sink the titanic again.
  - the writing is straight out of one of those wattpad fan fics about one direction kidnapped me.
  - wattpad like words aka "porn star looking woman" and "inconceivable goddess."
  - the main character, adam, who is ten years old ???? talks and acts like a god damn 3 year old.
  - stupid transitions between first and third person POV, just make up your god damn mind.
  - this really weird and gross romance when they were like ten years old and shit.
  - the writing honestly sucked
  - SO MUCH SEXISM AND MISOGYNY. every single female character in this book is just used for pleasure for the men and is only looked at to be hot and sexy.
  - main character syndrome for the whole book.
  - "she bent over, removed her thong, and began pressing her bare ass and pussy against my mouth and "she took my head in her arms and put it between my two boobs." wtf
  - very fucking racist
  - bro you have like 50 wives keep it in your pants
  disgusting plot about a sex worker, maybe subplot, either way it was gross af
  - the talking parts was like "i said this to him, but he responded with saying not to worry about it all."
• 
  hollie

  Dear Lord, this year is already off to a bad start if this is the kind of books I am going to be reading.
  I hated this which is kind of strong for me to say but I can’t quite put into words how much this book just annoyed me.
  
  - gaping (and I mean gaping to the point that it’s possible this is the size of the black hole) plot holes. what even was this plot?? who is she because she wasn’t written here.
  - racist, cliche and utterly mind numbing characters. I actually couldn’t fathom some of the things I read. which brings me on to the writing - I can’t even talk about it. awful.
  - the honest lack of care in this book is what is most disappointing. full of grammatical errors, weird phonetic spelling to depict people’s accents, random structure. just the whole thing was a mess.
  
  I don’t want to hate on a book but this is possibly one of the worst books I have read and I won’t be getting those two hours back of my life.
  I received this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
• 
  Nicole Fischman (IG moms_book_nook)

  Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
  
  While working on this review, I was trying to come up with the nicest way possible to put my words together.
  
  This book was quite strange and that’s putting it mildly. There was little suspense, some sciencey type fiction and a touch of romance. I think the idea was right, but just not crazy about the way it was carried out.
  
  It’s rare that I ever give a book less than 3 stars, but I just can’t give it anymore than 2!
  
  This book deals with suicide which I think is a really touchy subject and needs to be handled with care.
  
  The Goodreads synopsis notes that “Adam discovers that immortality comes at a cost; every time he dies, he loses a little bit of himself”. At one point, Adam is forced to choose between life and love.
  
  I’ve seen some reviews call this a thriller and I don’t think I would necessarily classify it as that.
  
  I wish I had better feedback for this one, but this is my truest and most honest review.
• 
  Josephine

  I guess strange in the title is a good description. It pulled me in at the beginning, but then it was just too much suicide and characters coming into the story that you weren't sure how they fit and where in the timeline of the story we were. I think it seems like a great concept, but it was a little too violent in places for me. I wasn't able to finish this so I don't think it's fair of me to give any star rating that will impact the book's overall rating. Sometimes a book slows down and I can get through it to the end and it's amazing, but I just couldn't do that here. I know a lot of work goes into writing a book, so I can appreciate that, but this just wasn't for me.
  
  Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
• 
  Jenifer

  Dark and crazy, depressing with a side of hope.
  This is a total mindbender. I'm still reeling trying to wrap my head around it. With each new section/chapter that a new person or place is presented I got more confused and perplexed but at the same time pieces of this strange puzzle start to click. And un-click. It's like Alice calling Wonderland "curiouser and curiouser." I could not rip myself away.
  When I finished I just stared blankly ahead and all I could say was...Whoa.... What the whaaa did I just read?! This will take me awhile to recover from. It was quite an experience.
  
  
  (I received a complimentary copy of this book from Hidden Gems.)
• 
  Ffion Ponting

  Sadly, this book didn’t live up to my expectations. I think the idea for the plot is genius, but it could have been executed better. There is a lot of mystery in this storyline so it can often get quite confusing, and I sometimes felt a little lost as to what was happening. Despite this, I thought that the ending was absolutely beautiful. It gives closure both to the characters and the readers, which is quite rare for a book of this genre. Overall, a fairly disappointing read, I expected much more from this book.
• 
  Nola

  I was given an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.
  
  This book was different. The concept was intriguing, but the story took about half of the novel to piece together and understand what was actually happening. Then when I figured out what was happening another host of characters was introduced and muddled the story. I figured it out but then the last third of the book was disjointed, and the ending felt rushed.
  
  An ok read if you’re looking for a different plot.
• 
  Chelsey Harris

  An interesting concept, but poorly executed. I really wanted to like this book, but from the very first page, the writing is clunky. There are some really serious passive voice and tense issues. I also thought the chapters jumped too quickly, especially in the beginning of the book. These were all craft issues that threw me out of the story. In addition, I don't think that the world was built very well in that I didn't believe what was happening at all.