Reviews with content warning for Ableism - The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

I wanted to love this book, and the beginning really sucked me in with the mystery. The structure is ambitious and intriguing, but by the end, I was confused and unsatisfied. Partly due to the nature of the plot, there wasn’t any deep character development, and as the truth of what was going on was revealed, I disliked the story more and more. The ending has so many twists that didn’t feel completely earned, and by that point I didn’t care about any of the characters. The rules, ethics, and motivations of those driving the story remain ill-defined to me. I didn’t enjoy the violence and aggressive fat phobia in the book. However, I will concede that the cleverness of the overall concept may be enough for someone else to find more satisfaction in this read than I did.

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meganm1587's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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mladd28's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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bimblebop's review against another edition

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The plot is actually quite interesting but the way the narrator describes the state of being switched into a fat disabled body is so nauseating, I just couldn't keep crawling through those chapters.

At some point my disgust for the blatant fatphobia far outweighed my interest in how the story unravels because it truly felt never-ending, especially as that part of the book was much longer (and descriptive) than any previous body the narrator had been switched into. It's like the character couldn't be given the grace of being anything other than abhorrently fat and old - and by consequence, a repulsive person to be around by virtue of the fact that he is so fat, that's all there is to him. None of the other characters are even interesting enough for me to be attached to them either.

Maybe I'll come back to this book at some point to find out how it ends, but right now I just don't feel like I should have to force myself to read a book I'm dreading.

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wickedgrumpy's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

To relate it to a movie mash up, take Being John Malkovich and pair it with Knives Out with a dash of unexplained world building sci-fi time loop situation.

Premise was quite good, but the execution suffered. It dragged in the middle and the wrap up at the end wasn’t very satisfying because it left so many questions unanswered.

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