The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August - Claire North

Title: The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
Author: Claire North
Genre: Sci-fi
Rating: 3/5
# pages: 486
Date read: January 2016

No matter what he does or the decisions he makes, when death comes, Harry always returns to where he began, a child with all the knowledge of a life he has already lived a dozen times before. Nothing ever changes.

Until now.

As Harry nears the end of his eleventh life, a little girl appears at his bedside. "I nearly missed you, Doctor August," she says. "I need to send a message."

This is the story of what Harry does next, and what he did before, and how he tries to save a past he cannot change and a future he cannot allow.


I don't quite know what I think of this book... it was a surprisingly slow read while simultaneously being surprisingly fascinating as well. At about the half-way mark I commented that I could neither get into this book nor put it down, and that seemed to be the case until the very end.

A fascinating story with a very unusual plot. It focuses on a different sort of immortality from what is often portrayed in books, and I think Claire North handled it very well. I can't quite make up my mind as to whether or not I actually liked it, but I read the last 200 pages in one sitting, so it certainly kept my interest well enough.