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I would not have read this one at all except the author strongly recommended it, because Michael Hollister is a serial killer in some of the other books and I really didn't want to be in his POV or get any serial killing scenes. There are zero serial killing scenes, and Shawn Inmon is right: it really is one of the best books in the series.
The book avoids any serial killing scenes by starting with a timeline in which Michael killed one person in a fit of rage and then went to jail, rather than becoming a serial killer. In that timeline, he kills himself in jail, after which he wakes up as his own younger self. Much younger self. Michael is seven years old!
This is a genius idea, as it both enables Michael to never be a serial killer at all in the timelines we follow, and instantly shoots him to the top of my favorite narrators in the series as once he settles into living the timeline through, he's an angry, sarcastic adult in a child's body. This is sometimes poignant, but often very funny.
Before that, though, he has to work through some anger. Okay, a lot of anger. It turns out that Michael was sexually abused by his father. This is very sensitively handled, IMO, with no on-page scenes of sexual abuse, but a lot of psychological fallout.
( spoilers )
There is also a prominent Universal Life Center plotline, which comes across as fairly sinister in this iteration, but also worked better for me than any of the other ones as the person there has a very personal stake in what she's doing: she's Michael's victim from his original timeline.
I'm usually not big on forgiveness themes as they often come across as victim-blaming, but it's a prominent theme in this book and in context I found it very moving.
This has moved to a surprising tie with The Empathetic Life of Rebecca Wright for my favorite book in the series so far.
The book avoids any serial killing scenes by starting with a timeline in which Michael killed one person in a fit of rage and then went to jail, rather than becoming a serial killer. In that timeline, he kills himself in jail, after which he wakes up as his own younger self. Much younger self. Michael is seven years old!
This is a genius idea, as it both enables Michael to never be a serial killer at all in the timelines we follow, and instantly shoots him to the top of my favorite narrators in the series as once he settles into living the timeline through, he's an angry, sarcastic adult in a child's body. This is sometimes poignant, but often very funny.
Before that, though, he has to work through some anger. Okay, a lot of anger. It turns out that Michael was sexually abused by his father. This is very sensitively handled, IMO, with no on-page scenes of sexual abuse, but a lot of psychological fallout.
( spoilers )
There is also a prominent Universal Life Center plotline, which comes across as fairly sinister in this iteration, but also worked better for me than any of the other ones as the person there has a very personal stake in what she's doing: she's Michael's victim from his original timeline.
I'm usually not big on forgiveness themes as they often come across as victim-blaming, but it's a prominent theme in this book and in context I found it very moving.
This has moved to a surprising tie with The Empathetic Life of Rebecca Wright for my favorite book in the series so far.
