The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

I can only speak from my experience and, wow, this book hooked me right at the end of that first chapter, “but it’s happening faster.” Now to go into what that means, I will remain spoiler-free, but my jaw dropped. And the story only ramped up after that.

I love stories where the protagonist finds themselves in genuine peril, and Claire puts Harry August in a particular type of peril that truly had me terrified for his well-being in every chapter. The best type of suspense escalates in every chapter and it escalates here in this book in… show more.

Perhaps less multi-timeline than multi-life, The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is about an unusual form of reincarnation. Harry August isn’t born into a new body when he dies; instead, he reboots back to his childhood, memories intact, and lives his life all over again. And again. And again.

I recently described this book to someone who hadn’t read it, and it led to hours of conversation about what each of us would do in Harry’s situation, what choices we would make differently, what we would try to keep the same from one life to the next. I challenge… show more.

There must be some part of me that wants to live my life over again because I’m drawn to books that explore that idea. I’d like to write such a book myself one day. Maybe I already have. But I’d be hard-pressed to write one as good as The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. Claire North makes it look easy, marrying a compelling concept to stellar plotting and great characterization in a book difficult to put down.   

I found North’s mind-bending novel as I was crossing the threshold from cancer patient to cancer survivor (my own cross-genre personal narrative!). A blend of historical fiction, science fiction, and Groundhog Day, Harry August shows us fifteen iterations of the twentieth century through Harry's uncanny repetitive immortality and a conveniently perfect memory. The book uses its Groundhog Day plot device to raise interesting questions about love and memory and inheritance (even to himself!). And its historical and science-fiction angles reveal something of a Stoic/Zen parable about what you can control and what you can’t.

I'm a sucker for the time travel genre, and specifically the sub-genre of time loops. Harry August adds a layer to the beloved “trope” that I don't think I've ever seen before: the protagonist lives the same life over and over again, from birth to death. It's hard to describe this one beyond the premise in any way that does it justice, but luckily the premise is intriguing enough in its own right. A highly recommended book.

To describe this book is to lessen it. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is so unique, inventive, and well-constructed, that it made me feel like a kid again, discovering new adventures for the first time. That rippling of time is quite a feat for a book about a man who, each time he dies, returns to where his life began with the full knowledge of his past lives. Given that premise, anyone could imagine the myriad directions that an author could go. I guarantee you that nothing you imagine can match the tale that Claire North spins here.… show more.