Review | The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

The Book: The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

Date Published: September 18, 2018

Dates Read: March 6-13, 2019

Current Goodreads Rating: 3.99/5

Not to be confused with similarly titled The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Seven Deaths was a breath of fresh air after several stuffy, dense books. It took me about a week to get through this book only because the story itself was so immersive that it occasionally gave me nightmares.

Stick with me.

Seven Deaths is an interesting take on the classic murder mystery. This book is almost 400 pages and the reader never strays further than the forest outside of a mansion and never lasts longer than a single day. That's why we chose this book as our "Book that takes place in a single day"

Every day Aiden Bishop wakes up he's in a new body. First it's the handsome drug dealer, then it's the head butler, then an aging philanthropist. He only has until midnight with each of his eight hosts and he has to solve the mystery of who killed Evelyn Hardcastle within that time or else it all resets and his memory is wiped completely. Every host has his own pros and cons and gradually, as the mystery is slowly unraveled everything comes together. However, it's not just the mystery of Evelyn's killer that is discovered. Throughout his time in this seemingly endless nightmare, Aiden tries to uncover where he's at and who the supposed ring leader, the Plague Doctor, is.

Now imagine this watching you while you sleep. You're welcome.

I first started reading this at around 8 or 9pm the first night my husband left for a trip to Colorado. For almost four days it was just me and my dog (a five pound Yorkie who would do absolutely nothing except get in the way if anything ever actually happened). This book creeped me out. Maybe it was the idea of a man in a Plague mask creeping in the shadows or the idea that Aiden could trust absolutely no one in this house of secrets that just made it difficult for me to turn off the lights and go to sleep, but this book stuck with me. Every discovery Aiden made, the reader was right alongside him. For example, in his first host, Aiden discovers that Evelyn's mother's room was broken into. He finds the door pretty much hanging off its hinges, and it's a clue that he remembers for the remainder of his hosts. Who kicked her door open and why?

What goes wrong? There weren't too many things that I didn't like about this book. I love a murder mystery and I love historical fiction. However, I will say that sometimes this book was heavy handed with the clues. I liked the mini-mystery of who kicked the door in, but OH MY GOD there were so many moving parts here.

Because Aiden had from when his hosts woke up in the morning to midnight, a lot of the book was repeated scenes from multiple perspectives. I found, at times, that tracking where each of Aiden's individual hosts were at that given time very difficult especially when the host's time is broken up. For example, when Aiden is playing the butler he gets the ever-living shit beaten out of him. He fades in and out of consciousness for the remainder of his time in the butler's body. However, every time the butler passes out Aiden wakes up in a new host's body. Do you see where this might get confusing? I think it's an ingenious way to break up each individual host's time, and Turton does as great a job as he can to keep it understandable, but sometimes I felt like I needed to be taking notes as I read and that's just not how I roll.

Ok let's move on into spoiler territory.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Let's talk about that ending. Obviously Aiden solves all the mysteries he sets out to solve. He closes a case that has been opens for decades and discovers where exactly he is. Honestly, I have more thoughts about the "Where the Hell are We?" mystery than the "Who Killed Evelyn Hardcastle?" mystery. Evelyn is kind of a snotty brat so I didn't really care what happened to her. Side note: Too harsh? Maybe, but I find in literature that most children of rich entrepreneur types always lean heavily towards insufferably annoying.

As a whole I thought the "let's trap dangerous criminals in old cold cases so they can be punished and also solve crimes we never could" is a fascinating idea. I want to know more about the world that created this prison system. According to the Plague Doctor, this case in particular houses the baddest baddies and so I want to see all the other different cases the not as bad baddies have to solve. How does one get into this "jail cell?" Who was the mastermind behind this creation?

My reservations about the ending itself is how Aiden is involved. According to the Plague Doctor, Anna (a woman also trapped in the mystery, but with only one host) is the worst of the worst. She persuaded Aiden's sister to join her cult and then, as cult leaders tend to do, persuaded Aiden's sister and the other followers to drink the Kool-Aid. Angry that her punishment was not enough Aiden talks his way into the simulation in order to torture and torment Anna. But he tries and fails to solve this mystery so many times that eventually he forgets what he's doing there and is trapped with only her name, eight hosts, and an apparently unsolvable mystery. Throughout this last go around he's protective of Anna, doing his best to solve the mystery and get both of them out of this nightmare because they're friends or something.

Maybe it's just because I was personally offended that this book made me care about Anna and then was like, "JK she's actually a terrible person. Does she deserve freedom now?," but I was kind of mad when Aiden decided that she wasn't all that bad and left the simulation with her. I think it's a really fascinating take on the discussion of if bad people can change, but it still left a sour taste in my mouth when they basically closed the story on Anna and Aiden walking into the sunset.

I'd be interested to hear other reader's thoughts on this topic. Can bad people change? If they can should they be completely forgiven for their past misdeeds?

Long Story Short:

• God, I love a good murder mystery

• Who really cares about Evelyn Hardcastle?

• Do we all deserve a proverbial sunset?

My Rating: 4/5

Up Next: The Secret History by Donna Tartt