Now Kepler is looking out through the eyes of the killer himself, staring down at a broken and ruined body lying in the dirt of the alley.
Instead of dying, Kepler has gained the ability to roam from one body to another, to jump into another person’s skin and see through their eyes, live their life — be it for a few minutes, a few months or a lifetime.
Kepler means these host bodies no harm — and even comes to cherish them intimately like lovers. But when one host, Josephine Cebula, is brutally assassinated, Kepler embarks on a mission to seek the truth — and avenge Josephine’s death.
Comment: Roughly two years ago, I've read a book by this author as a buddy read with my friend H. At the time, I had a good experience reading it and then I looked at other books by the author and some caught my eye. This was one of them and in the last few days I gave it a go.
In this book we follow the steps of Kepler, even though this might not be their real name, who is a Ghost. A Ghost is a person who dies, often in some traumatic manner, and upon death if they somehow touch some skin on somebody else's, they "jump" into that person's body and become that person. From this moment on, the Ghost has the ability to jump into anyone they want, for as how long as they need or want and they command that person's body completely. When they leave that "host", the person has no memory of what happened and they can't understand why so much time has passed.
This book begins when Kepler's host is killed and Kepler, having been fond of his host, decides to embark on a mission to discover why the host was killed and, eventually, get revenge.
On the way, though, Kepler finds many setbacks, deals with many people - including other Ghosts - and in the end a decision needs to be made...
If one thing can be said about the author's work is that imagination is not running out for her plots.
As it happened with the first book by her I've tried, this too was quite innovative in its working, even if similar ideas have been used by other authors, etc.
The notion that we could be anyone, anywhere, do whatever we wanted because there wouldn't be no consequences, no dealing with the afterwards, is strangely compelling, even while being basically a form of manipulation and morally wrong.
I'd say this is the biggest question of this book (although other things could be discussed rather extensively), this idea that we already use others for our benefit and what is missing is the use of the individual's body as our own.
Kepler is a very ambiguous character. We never have the certainty this is a male or female but the ghosts can be whomever they want, gender isn't that important. In fact, this is quite an interesting detail too, how we aren't only our physical appearance, what makes us us, is the combination of our body's abilities with our mind, our personality... this was also addressed the book because ghost don't acquire the host's memories or knowledge.
The whole book is focused on Kepler's mission, the experiences they went through, the people he met, including other ghosts and all the potential hosts out there. Kepler is distinguished from others because we are told they cared for the hosts they used - although that didn't stop them from using them anyway.
The morals here are quite thought provoking. I think the philosophical and moral side of this whole idea is what made me eager to read the book.
There were two problems, though, for me.
The idea of this book is crazy but offered interesting possibilities. I think the flaw for me was how vague and dubious Kepler was. If this character were to be someone we could sympathize with, the story would have gained a lot ore intensity. I understand the author wanted to leave them as someone we had to doubt, we had to wonder about, we had to think about motivations and would we become so indifferent to the host's rights with time, but... the way this went, Kepler was more like a parasite, someone not worthy of our empathy and care and it got to the point I wasn't certain what I really wanted to happen to them.
The other issue for me is that, in between so many characters, so many different settings (these ghosts certainly manage to travel a lot), so many "jumps", there were some confusing transitions. I wasn't always aware of where things were what was happening... mixed with this was also the fact Kepler, as narrator, was always thinking about past experiences, referencing hosts used, making connections between a lot of things.
There were moments I felt a little lost and added with the lack of sympathy towards Kepler...some passages weren't as poignant as they could have been.
So, among all the confusion, Kepler remains on their mission, we discover why their host was killed in the beginning of the book, we muddle through a lot of moral questions and difficult choices, and we learn why the villain felt like doing all the bad things that happen during the plot.
We go to the end of the book, some things happen and then... what? Was Kepler successful in his mission, what lessons did they learn at all?!
Again, as it happened in the other book I've read, no closure is gained. I think in the other book, that was OK, no big deal. However, in this one, the story does feel incomplete, as if the author had no ideas and hid that behind the whole "left to the reader's imagination" thing.
Summarizing, the story has an amazing premise, the idea is really interesting but the lack of affinity with Kepler, the lack of closure and a more structured development really made me think this was only OK for me. Sure, the plot moving along all over the place has its aim in sight but I think a more well structured segmentation of events would have aided me to visualize things better.
I still have two books by the author to read... I hope I'll like them better than this one.
Grade: 6/10
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