The Incarnations

Disastrous! Needs all the trigger warnings there are in the world.
Not a love story but more of a let me repeatedly stab you in the back (and in the face) across lifetimes. Don't have a single good thing to say about this book. The plot kept getting worse and worse with every chapter.
If you value your sanity and mental health, don't touch this book with a ten foot pole.

Fascinating reading. The last section is very painful to read. The twist at the end is amazing.

Verwoven verhalen als bij David Mitchell, 1500 jaar Chinese geschiedenis, en een fijne twist aan het eind, overtroffen door een extra twist aan het eind-eind.

The book opens with a lone writer, hunched over an ancient keyboard in a grim, concrete room typing out dreams and obsessing over Beijing taxi driver Wang Jun. They are soulmates, their lives intertwined across generations and Barker explores each of these incarnations in depth. They are grim stories with dark endings and it doesn't look like Wang's present incarnation is going to fare much better.

Lots of exotic oriental set pieces that read like intertwined short stories as the mystery of who the obsessed writer is slowly revealed.

I can see why this is being compared to David Mitchell - it's a time-hopping multi-viewpoint (kind of) novel, but I'm afraid those comparisons don't do this book any favours. It doesn't have the range of vision or the variety of voice that make his novels so satisfying. That said, it's no sin to be not quite as good as my favourite living writer, and this is an entertaining book. If you're at all interested in contemporary China or her history you will find something to enjoy here. I just wish I'd come to it with slightly lower expectations.