Half Baked Reviews: The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare by MG Buerhlen

Currently, I am on page 223 of 410, which is a little more than halfway through according to math.
It's about a girl who has been reincarnated 56 times, and she is capable of traveling back in time to her past lives. However, someone doesn't want her to be able to do that, and they want to kill her.

The book is so far, a fairly easy read. The size of the book is kind of deceiving, because I was able to get through these pages relatively quickly.

What this book is doing well so far:

• It's a very interesting concept. I just have a very beautiful image in my mind when I imagine Limbo, and it's very entertaining so far.
• I like the writing style. It will have a short description, one of the character's funny thoughts, and then some dialogue. There's very good balance and the author uses very good imagery.
• It seems to be dealing with time travel in a way that makes sense, but it's a very daunting task for an author to write about time travel. There are so many potential plot holes that can be made and things that can be misinterpreted. The author is doing a pretty good job with it so far, though.

What is making me seriously consider throwing this book against the wall:

• Instaluv. And a lot of it. I knew when I opened the book and the first thing I saw was "This is the way my story begins. Not with a bang but a whimper. Nothing more than a calm voice, a careful smile, and a pair of spectacles perched on the tip of a thin nose. But don't let that deter you. You'll be happy to know a bang comes in the end. Literally. Along with a kiss, a promise, a death, a broken heart, and an end to life as you and I would have known it" that this book would be a hit or a miss. But OH MY GOSH. The main character meets this guy with muscles and blue green eyes and he's very kind and instantly she's drawn to him. The next day, they go on a date, make out, and the main character wants to have sex with him. WHAT??!
• Long information dumps. The author tried to disguise them and casually weave them into conversations, but when you have a page of information with no indents that indicate a new paragraph, you can't disguise it.
• The author usually used very nice sentences, but there was one sentence in particular that just killed me so much that I felt the need to fold the end of the page it was contaminating just so I could point it out in this review. "Every muscle was stiff, and my stomach growled, demanding a living sacrifice." page 208. WHAT? DEMANDING A LIVING SACRIFICE? That one sentence just changed the mood of that entire page so much. There was this kind waiter serving her pancakes an other yummy stuff, and I'm just laughing and shaking and crying all at once because I'm imagine her stomach tearing bloody birds apart and devouring their feathers one at a time and screaming "GIVE ME MORE!" Not imagery I needed.
• I hate the main character. She's kind of stupid and impatient. She's too emotionally attached to people, and I'm partially just saying that because I'm emotionally detached and I can't relate to her. But she's kind of an idiot, she seems really dependent on other people, and it seems like she overreacts to certain situations a bit more than the situation calls for.

My feelings are kind of mixed about this book, but I'm enjoying it so far. It's pretty fast paced, it's not very boring, and I'd like to see where this leads.