For some strange reason the book has two names. The US version is called The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (Amazon affiliate link) whilst the UK version is The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. I am not sure what the extra half death is all about.

What really grabbed my attention with this book was the blurp. Which is why blurps are so important!

The blurp

Tonight, Evelyn Hardcastle will be killed… again.

It is meant to be a celebration but it ends in tragedy. As fireworks explode overhead, Evelyn Hardcastle, the young and beautiful daughter of the house, is killed.

But Evelyn will not die just once. Until Aiden – one of the guests summoned to Blackheath for the party – can solve her murder, the day will repeat itself, over and over again. Every time ending with the fateful pistol shot. 

The only way to break this cycle is to identify the killer. But each time the day begins again, Aiden wakes in the body of a different guest. And someone is determined to prevent him ever escaping Blackheath…

My thoughts

I think that the gist of the novel is that it happens during one day with Aiden jumping between eight different bodies. Aiden is usually in one body for a full day but if he falls asleep (or passes out) during the day he is transported into another body so the entire plot is not exactly in order. It sounds more complicated than it really is. Usually you figure out very quickly what body Aiden is in.

When the novelty of how complex the plot of this novel is fades there is not much left. Since the time line of the novel is basically one day there is this repetition of basically not knowing anything. I got quickly just tired of how the novel is stuck in rising action without there being much change. The entire book was just chain of events (or even the same event again and again) without any solutions or a change of fortune.

A part of me wanted to go back and re-read the novel to maybe see what connections I had missed in the beginning. However, when I read the ending it spoiled the entire book for me. Not in the sense that now I knew the end but in the sense that the ending was quite bad. I didn’t want to re-read the book and be disappointed again in a lacklustre ending.

When I think about if I liked the book I am quite torn. I liked some of the aspects of the novel, I liked the idea of the plot, I liked some of the writing. But at the same time I didn’t like many aspects of the novel, the plot started to become boring, and the ending was just really bad.

So maybe 2.5 out of 5. But if I would exclude the ending closer to 3-4 out of 5!

That is all for today! How do you deal with books that have bad endings?

-Katrin