Review - The Untimely Deaths of Alex Wayfare

The Untimely Deaths of Alex Wayfare (Alex Wayfare #2)
by M. G. Buehrlen
Date: 2016
Publisher: Diversion Books
Reading level: YA
Book type: prose novel
Pages: 228
Format: e-book
Source: Amazon.ca

As Alex's sister loses the fight against cancer, a race for a cure sends Alex traveling back and forth through time, dodging enemy Descenders who seem to know Alex's every move before she does. Realizing her enemies have privileged information, Alex fears there is a traitor hiding within the small band of allies she's grown to trust.

A traitor who might bring Gesh straight to Alex's front door.

While Gesh closes the gap in Base Life, and Blue's true identity surfaces, Alex stumbles upon a secret about her reincarnations that will change her life, or her lives, forever.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I'm so disappointed. This book had the potential to be amazing, but it fell so flat. I've been waiting for this sequel for a couple of years now, wanting some resolution to the cliff-hanger ending of the first book. Not only was that cliff-hanger never really resolved, but the ending of this book reads like the end of the series. Not cool.

Please, dear author, I want some more...

The premise of this series is what I found so intriguing about the first book. A reincarnating time traveller in the body of a geeky seventeen-year-old girl? Sounds like my type of story. But...

It's all a matter of taste...

This installment of Alex's story seemed to bring up so many rules for the time travel and reincarnation, making everything seem really complicated and, at times, overly convenient. Alex suffers from Special Snowflake Syndrome. She's a Mary Sue when it comes to time travel, since she has skills that nobody else has. On the other hand, she's also self-deprecating to the point that it grows very tiresome.

My biggest complaint with this sequel, however, is that nothing happened. Well, some things happen, but not like in the first book, with Alex diving down into multiple lives, exploring her past selves in a mix of action and romance. This book is basically a "kid with cancer" book in disguise, with a whole lot of angst about Alex's sister, Audrey, and her worsening condition. In fact, Alex doesn't even go back in time until well after the halfway point, and she only goes on two missions in total... both with the aim of saving her sister. Meanwhile, there's the whole issue with Blue, Alex's partner/soulmate, running as an undercurrent throughout the whole story. I'm not pleased with the way it was handled. It comes across as kind of cheap and convenient, and makes Alex look like an idiot (she's kind of oblivious, anyway, as are quite a few characters in the story... which is also tiresome, because you feel like you're reading about morons who can't put two and two together to save their own lives).

I was thinking this would be a three-star read as I was going along, especially once I hit some action in the last third of the book. But then the ending came. One of my favourite parts of The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare was that ending... even though it made us wait. But it was a good kind of waiting, full of anticipation and wondering. Here, though, we're treated to some sappy word vomit from Alex on the nature of life, and then the book just ends. No hints about any of the questions that are still unanswered. No hint of any third book. If that was it... well, that would be a huge waste. A waste of a great premise, a waste of a great love story... and a waste of the reader's time.

Let's get technical...

The sentence fragments drove me nuts. I don't remember the first book being quite so bad. (Maybe it was... but it had enough of a plot to make me overlook that sort of thing.) I also grew tired of correcting the punctuation in my Kindle copy. And, for future reference, writers: "whir" is a noise; "whirl" is a spinning action. If your mind is actually "whirring", you need to see a doctor.

The verdict...

I'm not ready to give up on this series, if there turns out to be a third book. I do like the premise. I just wish this book had had more action and less philosophical monologuing.

Quotable moment:

My whole life is made up of lies now. I wear them like scarves and hats and little flowers in my hair.

But then again, doesn’t everyone?

Premise: 3/5
Plot: 1/5
Characters: 2/5
Pace: 1/5
Writing: 3/5
Editing: 2/5
Originality: 3/5
Enjoyment: 1/5

Overall Rating: 2 out of 5 ladybugs