I was really hoping this would be a cool dynamic story that was perhaps a bit hard to follow but ultimately a great time. What I got here was, sadly, not that. I would have dropped it almost immediately, if I hadn't made the commitment to review it.

Firstly, the book suffers from a case of "man writing women" - that's obvious from the first scene, in which the protagonist tries to score a chick working in an underwear store and wows her with his clever insights on women and lingerie. This is made worse because all characters, a huge chunk of whom are women the protagonist is or has been romantically and sexually involved, are extremely flat - they have collections of quirks and traits that don't coalesce into a believable personality.

As the protagonist Vincent Ettrich isn't written much better than the supproting cast. I think he's meant to be a charming but flawed man who has things to challenge in himself (like the way he treats women) but none of that comes through. He's not charismatic or likeable in any way, and I personally found the portions of the book narrated from his perspective (that is, the majority of the book) painfully annoying.

I've heard that the story was hard to grasp but I personally had no problem following it. It's odd, and the worldbuilding is kind of weird but nothing impossible to understand. I was actually hoping it to be a bit less straighforward, actually. The problem is any time something odd happens it's almost immideately explained to the reader. I'm not a staunch proponent of "show not tell" but the telling here was too much. There are a few scenes where one character straight up gives a "what's happening for Dummies" lecture to another character, or the narrator constantly explains things about the world and characters directly. I suspect this overexplaining is why the plot felt like 90% set-up with 10% pay-off. As a matter of fact every good idea the author had in terms of the world was either explained in a way that sucked all the life from it, or severely underused.

3⭐
Vincent Ettrich has died & come back to life - he remembers nothing. Oh, and he also has a son on the way. A son who is going to save the universe one day, ONLY IF Vincent can remember what happened to him in the afterlife and pass down that knowledge to his son.

I was really drawn in because of the concept of the book, however, I don't think the writing style was for me.

Thank you NetGalley and Brilliance Publishing for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I have long been a big Jonathan Carroll fan although I must confess that I have not read his work in some time. But, back in the day, I went on a furious reading and buying spree and I own nearly everything he's written at this point.

I read White Apples and absolutely loved it at that time, so when I saw that there was an audio version available, I was immediately drawn to it - despite the fact that I normally don't prefer complex literary fiction in audio format. This is simply because I listen to stories while I am doing other things, and as a result do not pay the same type of attention to the nuances of the story as much. I tend to prefer nonfiction and serious lit fic in book format, whether ebook or physical copy. But, I reasoned, I'd read this one before and so I thought I might be able to listen and fully appreciate the book in this format.

I should have trusted my gut.

Despite excellent narration, I just couldn't connect to the story while listening in the way that I do when I read. It's an incredible story, and if you aren't familiar with it you should definitely pick it up in whatever format works best for you. It is complex and nuanced, thoughtful and hilariously snarky. The narration here really does justice to Caroll's storytelling style, unfortunately it didn't allow me to engage the way I needed to to fully appreciate it. It has been long enough since I read it that I found myself confused rather than engaged, and I know that that is a result of format for me. I'm going to have to go back and reread it now!

I think it's safe to say I'm not the target reader for this book, though I am still giving it 3 stars for originality. This is my first Jonathan Carroll book and I found his writing style a bit jarring. There's something a little retro about it, almost like a hard-boiled crime novel of the '50s, without the crime. His tendency towards "telling writing" had me feeling unconvinced in a few places and disengaged in others. In the end, I just didn't care enough for the main character Vincent to be invested in how things turned out for him.

This was first published in 2002 but, because I received a gifted audiobook copy, I gather it's newly releasing on audio. The audiobook production was done very well, and I felt that David DeVries did a great performance on narration. I would be interested in hearing more of his narration work in the future. Thank you to Brilliance Publishing and NetGalley for providing a copy for honest review.

This is my first time reading Jonathan Carroll and will probably also be my last time. I don't care for his style or his dialogue, and his characters are non-sensical.