The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

Worth reading, but didn't live up to it's clever premise, for me. I enjoyed the quick little vignettes about some of Harry's lives that weren't examined very deeply, and about the lives of some of the others, and I thought the overall structure was interesting, but I couldn't get invested in Harry, or his nemesis, or each of their quests; this meant getting through the second half was a bit of a slog.

I'm a sucker for stories where the main characters is stuck in a time loop. Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow stand out, but this one took it to an entirely new level. The title itself is a giveaway for the time loop – an entire lifetime. The concept of replaying your entire life sounds interesting, but the complications that come up when you (and perhaps others) can do this were problems I hadn't seen explored in Sci-Fi before.

im giving this book about 2385258285929359821352459842584295942954 + stars.
Its my new favourite thing with words in it .
I'm so glad I read it (finally ! )

I wish i could rewind and re-read this for the first time ( which I totally could .... but ... books.)
Vincent Rankis is why we can't have nice things .
But Harry would make such a great spy .
Totally didn't cry at the end ... emphasis on the cry .
I wouldn't mind a sequel in fact coughs
Glad I took my time with this tome .
It was worth every word and all the interruptions I received while reading .
Couldn't be happier.

I bought this book some six months ago. For some reason I didn't read it right away (well I do have a huge TBR pile). That was a mistake of sorts as it turns out that I quite loved TFFLoHA.
What is it about? Well I'll not give anything important that you cannot get from the book blurbs, but it is a most peculiar time travel story. Think Ground Hog Day (the movie) writ very large. Not just one day, but a whole life over and over. Claire North has thought about it very deeply and a very good story has resulted.

Executive Summary: This is another one of those books where I seem to be in the minority of my friends. The premise sounded excellent, but I struggled with the first half. It finished stronger than it started, saving it from a 2 star rating, albeit barely: 2.5 stars.

Full Review
The book was well written. The concept of reliving your life over and over again with all of your memories was fantastic. However the execution of the story just left me unengaged.

I'm not sure what I expected this book to be exactly, but it definitely had a different tone than I was looking for. It's starts off on such a bleak note for me that I think it instantly put me off it completely.

I'm stubborn though so I pushed through for awhile until I got to 40% mark and then I just ignored it for about a month. Instead of moving on to another book, I just didn't read at all. I finally decided to push through the final 60% over the long holiday weekend and I guess I'm glad I did.

I thought the ending was a lot better than the beginning. Maybe all that time away allowed me to reset and come in with proper expectations. I'm not really sure. Either way, I'm happy to be done with this book, and I probably won't pick up another by Claire North moving forward.

I'm a sucker for stories where the main characters is stuck in a time loop. Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow stand out, but this one took it to an entirely new level. The title itself is a giveaway for the time loop – an entire lifetime. The concept of replaying your entire life sounds interesting, but the complications that come up when you (and perhaps others) can do this were problems I hadn't seen explored in Sci-Fi before.

Starts well, with clever ideas for a kind-of time travelling story. The middle section, set in russia in the cold war, is tedious. This part is made harder to plough through because the main character is grey and boring.The last third of it got better. I gave it three stars for the brilliant idea, partly realised, but I couldn't recommend it as a good read. It had the potential to be a classic, what a pity.
Sex: none
Violence: some nasty things happen, but not described in much detail.
Bad language: none

A very tedious and drawn out reading experience. This book is really repetitive in style. The main protagonist is Harry August who keeps repeating his life from birth to death over centuries. The descriptions of Harry's alternative lives were rather anecdotal and pointless and made the book far too long. Arguably this book could have lost 200 pages and it wouldn't have effected the narrative. The structure of Harry's storyline is rather flimsy and loose. The relationship between Harry and his frenemy Vincent is also rather odd and the suggestion of a homoerotic tension between the two was rather off the mark for me. I really didn't enjoy the reading experience of this book and found finishing this book a chore. I was rather relieved to finally see the back of this book. A disappointing 1.5/2 out of 5 stars.

What a standout book. I loved it.

Harry August was born on 1st of January 1919 in the women's rest room of a railway station in the north of England. He lived an unremarkable life and died age 70. Whereupon he was born on 1st of January 1919 in the same women's rest room. Three years later he started to get memories of his first life and by age 6 he remembered everything. Speaking of such things won him no friends and he was 'put away' in an asylum where he died, whereupon he was born on 1st of January 1919 in the women's rest room of a railway station in the north of England. But this time young Harry knew not to speak of remembering each of his earlier lives.

So what would you do if you kept on being born into the same place and remembered everything from all your past lives with the foreknowledge to make better/different decisions? Kill Hitler before you turned 20? (spoiler: he didn't) It's a time travel story with a difference. And a totally captivating read of friendship, deception and betrayal.

3.5 stars. I really enjoyed reading this book, but something about the conclusion just felt a little too “bow on top”. And yea, there were those messy parts, but still, somehow...
Others wrote about the glacial pace, but I did not feel that way at all. I appreciate that the author spent half the book helping us to learn about Kalchakra and Harry's world before the conflict between he and his nemesis becomes clear.