The Reincarnationist by MJ Rose

This book was a booksense recommendation, and I thought it looked good. It was okay, but boy, was it long.

One thing I found slightly frustrating - the author of the book writes in her notes at the end that all of the pagan practices she describes in ancient Rome are historically accurate. However, her "further reading" all concerns reincarnation - there's not even one cite on the history of religion, which got a lot more pagination within the book itself. Depressing.

Another frustration with the book was that the treasure that is stolen, fought over, and killed for? We never really find out how it works. Nor do we even know for sure what it does.

There's a saying that if you introduce a gun in Act 1, it should go off by the end of Act 3. Similarly, if a secret passage is described, it should be used for an escape somewhere in the length of the book. And if a character has been searching for something, he should either find it in the end, or realize that his quest was misguided, or decide he'll never stop searching, or something. You can't just pretend that it was never important, even if you want to get a sequel out of it.

I felt like this book left too many unanswered questions and unresolved issues. It was engaging, but ultimately unsatisfying. You'd think the author could have done better with more than 450 pages. Two stars.

i've been looking so long at these pictures of you

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