Reincarnation Blues

Similar to The Good Place in its zany examination of life, death, and the afterlife, Reincarnation Blues follows Milo, a man on his 9996th try (out of 10,000 lives) to reach Perfection, or else become Nothing. First and foremost, this was funny. The jokes are abrupt, startling laughs out of you. Poore lets things get heavy, then introduces a character named Wavy Gravy 2. Somehow it works.Reincarnation Blues reads almost like an anthology, because each of Milo's lives feature a different tone, setting, and group of characters. The book's premise enables its protagonist to be any age or gender or race, in any time or place. However, in the lives covered extensively, Milo is usually a straight white man. Based on some Tarantino-esque slurs toward the end, not to mention basically all takes on sexual violence, Poore might not have the range.My other main gripe is how initial fun and intrigue fade because of increasing focus on corny flat romance (see also: [b:The Humans 16130537 The Humans Matt Haig https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1353739654l/16130537.SY75.jpg 21955852]). A trite conclusion to an imaginative pitch. How do you manage to make Death as a love interest boring? Probably by not really knowing how to write women. I'm just saying, if we're going that route, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind did it better. It's certainly ambitious, but when a book with universal reach lapses into stale tropes and torture porn, the whole thing falls flat.