Book Review No. 44 - Reincarnation Blue by Michael Poore

Everyone welcome, I hope you are enjoying the site. I know its mostly been book reviews lately, I hope to remedy that soon.
I couldn't put this week's book down. "Reincarnation Blues" by Michael Poore is a witty, humorous story of a man named Milo who's lived nearly 10,000 lives. If I believed in reincarnation, this is how I would imagine it. Each life is supposed to teach a lesson, and ultimately, people are supposed to achieve a "perfect" life. Milo, has lived more lives than any, and yet he still hasn't received perfection. His afterlife is also complicated, as he is involved in a forbidden love.  

Each chapter of the book is about one of Milo's lives or his time in the afterlife in-between his lifetimes. At first, I wasn't sure I was going to like this book. For some reason, the first few pages, I just didn't care for Milo. But as I got further into his story, I really came to enjoy reading about all of Milo's lives. And no, Milo doesn't always come back as a human. Poore mentions his lifetimes as animals, but doesn't commit whole chapters to these lives. Milo's lives jump from the ancient past to the far off future, so it's hard to define what sort of genre this book falls into. There are fantasy elements, futuristic sci-fi, modern day, Poore brings so many different worlds to life. 
I don't want to give too much away, but I enjoyed reading this book. Poore has a interesting and sometimes brutal way of story-telling that is funny but also heart wrenching. Milo is a flawed man, but he tries so hard, I couldn't help but keep wishing better for him.
This is a great work of fiction that I think has a broad audience, for sci-fi and fantasy fans. I've not read anything like this, so it's hard to define a definitive group of readers that would enjoy. If you don't like Milo at first, give it a chapter or two, and I think you will warm up to the guy, like I did.   Until next time, Jenny