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Things this book has going for it: an intense tagline, an endorsement from V.E. Schwab, and a comparison to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and This is How You Lose the Time War.

Things this book does not have going for it: the plot. Kind of.

The gist of this book is that two (essentially) immortal teens have been cursed for over a millennia(?) to fall in love and then kill each other in each lifetime.

Except they don't have to fall in love. They've just been in love for as long as the other can remember. Oh, and it also kind of borders on hate because they always end up killing one another before they turn 18. BUTTTT the main character, Evelyn, can only remember the past few lifetimes and really wants to keep living in her current body.

In other words, the details are murky because the world-building is murky-- and I'm being generous. There are a lot of over-arching statements/terms used (immortality, the "loving each other in every lifetime", having to kill each other, etc.), without an explanation as to why/ when/ how we got to this point.

But I'll give credit where credit is due. The characterization of Evelyn and Aren was beautiful and I felt enchanted by the premise of their story. I love how Laura Steven chose to focus on non-Westernized or over-saturated points of history; it was diverse and didn't gloss over tragedy. I was getting tired of the time-traveling books that always went to Shakespeare's London or French Revolution Paris; in that regard, OUR INFINITE FATES was very refreshing.

That being said, the more I reflect on this story, the more disappointed I feel. Essentially, every selling point of this novel was shortened by its ending, and it had an abundance of plot holes. I was most looking forward to reading how Evelyn and Aren always fall in love, but it was instead an established plot point that the reader is supposed to accept. These characters somehow lacked chemistry despite being together... well, forever. The ending was very rushed and, from my point of view, cheapened the entire book.

All in all, I felt that this was one of those books that you enjoy reading in the moment, but can't let yourself think about it too hard or too long.

Regardless, my deepest thanks to Netgalley, Laura Steven, and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

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It’s been quite a while since I’ve read something so heartfelt, lyrical and somehow nostalgic. This book could have been 300 pages longer and I would have enjoyed every single one. Getting to see the past lives of Evelyn and Arden (or Daphne and Calliope if you want to get real technical) was so interesting. I could have in no way predicted the reason behind their reincarnations but I was throughly entertained by the twist. The author also really encapsulated what it means to be human and to feel love and grief in all forms.

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Thank you so much to NetGalley, Wednesday Books, and Laura Steven for allowing me to review this masterpiece in exchange for my honest review. This is a new favorite of all time! I absolutely loved every word in this book. It made me cry in the best of ways which is really hard for an author to manage. This book is also so romantic and tragic. I loved reading this and can’t recommend it enough!!! This book will stay with me for a very long time. Thank you again for allowing me to review this beautifully written book.

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I wanted to love this story more. I truly did. Because the concept is awesome and I truly believe Laura Steven is a great writer. But the story fell flat for me. At times it became slow and redundant and at other times it just felt forced. The ending was fantastic but I was left with questions and hoping for more in a not so satisfying way. We could’ve used more substance in the present day storyline and conflict resolution. I still believe that this is a gripping story and one that everyone should read because it speaks to the blindness of love and the fact that our heart will desire even what it cannot understand.

Two souls are cursed to spend lifetime after lifetime hunting each other and neither living past 18years. One soul spends each lifetime trying to understand why this is their fate while the other spends each lifetime growing more angry and cold that it is. Yet a deep and inescapable love surrounds them both and they are emotionally and physically drawn to one another as soulmates despite all obstacles.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this title!

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Thank you Netgalley and Wednesday Books for an advanced copy of this book.

It had me hooked in the beginning. Two lovers destined to kill each other before their 18th birthday. Only to be reborn in different bodies throughout the world, and always able to find each other just to start the loop over again. Only, Evelyn cannot remember why the need for this game, while Arden only says it's to protect her and because he loves her that he does it, but it did not always seem like it. They have been playing this game for thousands of years.

After a while, I got a little bored mostly because I just wanted to know why Arden kept killing her. His hesitancy to say anything to Evelyn was killing me! The mystery behind it kept me reading.

The side characters in this story were fun, (Evelyn believing Ceri was Arden) and brought another layer to the book then just the two lovers being reincarnated life after life after life. I was also really hoping that Evelyn would be able to save her sister (in the present life) before her 18th birthday when Arden would have to kill her.

The book was also very well written and nothing was confusing, besides not knowing the reason for their curse which you do find out at that the end. I just wanted it to happen faster.

Let's just say, I was not expecting the reasoning behind the curse. I really had no idea where it was going and once the revelation happened, things made sense, but what a crazy revelation!

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I’ve not had much time to read recently so despite highly anticipating this one for months, I only finished up Our Infinite Fates this morning.

I can absolutely see why it was being compared to Addie. It has that same slowburn, glimpses of a life through time, character focused feel, but in a YA package.

I really loved the two main characters, Evelyn and Arden, and the way their lives were twisted together. The insights into their current and past relationships - and their different attitudes to this due to their multitude of short lives - made them deep, realistic characters.

The flashbacks to previous lives were intriguing, as was the mystery of their reincarnations which we are left wondering about along with Evelyn.
I didn’t see the twist coming, and while I initially felt it was a bit out of place compared to the story up to that point, I enjoyed the way it was developed.

The ending was left somewhat open for readers to interpret, but I choose to believe that what I suspected from the moment their deal was struck is true.

I do wish we had gotten to see some of Arden’s point of view at some point, as I feel that would have drawn me even further into their story.

I would definitely recommend OIF for those who loved Addie, but bear in mind that as a YA book it is by design less deep and detailed than her story.

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This is definitely a book for lovers of Addie LaRue. What a thrilling journey through time, I loved every minute of it.

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The writing was beautiful and poetic. About 55% in, the story became pretty repetitive and I was eager to get to the end. The end surprised me, but wasn't anything that wowed me.

Thank you NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

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The premise of this book was super interesting to me just based on the brief summary I read and I was not disappointed.

I enjoyed how the book flipped between the present and the past regularly so you got a glimpse at all the different lifetimes Arden and Evelyn lived over the centuries. It also gave you a better understanding of who they were as people and the connection they shared. Throughout the book you're trying to figure out why Arden keeps killing Evelyn instead of giving in to the love they so obviously share for one another. It's full of different twists and keeps you wondering who the true villain is throughout.

I will say I was pretty certain about who Arden was in the present pretty early but that's just how my brain works. The entire time you're holding you breath and hoping this will be the time they live out their lives and don't kill one another while also trying to figure out what's driving them and how they got caught up in this endless cycle.

I really enjoyed the ending of this book as well but it did seem a little rushed to me. You spend the book wondering what's going on and why this is happening and then at the end its very quickly explain and then handled. I still enjoyed it but a little more would have been welcome as well.

All in all I would definitely recommend this book to other readers who enjoy a twist to their slightly paranormal/fantasy books.

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This was everything. I went into this expecting not to enjoy it for some reason, and I came out of it obsessed.

This is a book middle school me would have eaten up so quickly, and I’m so grateful to have a book that gives me those same feels as back then since I’ve missed that and have been wanting it.

The writing was so entrancing and the characters and their various lives were so heartbreaking and hopeful and tragic and the twist was not what I would have expected it to be.

I do not have all the words to express how much I loved this, but if you are a fan of Fallen by Lauren Kate, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-MohTar and Max Goldstone, or Every Day by David Levithan, I feel like this would be just what you’d need next.

It incorporates aspects of a deal and centuries crossed like Addie LaRue, being semi enemies falling in love and crossing timelines like Time War, multiple lives lived and finding each other in every one with only one person remembering like Fallen, and inhabiting different bodies but loving each other all the same like in Every Day. And I loved it in those books and love them all coming together in this one.

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I have been looking for a book for a while that did the soulmates trope justice and I think I've found it. This is the one.

Our Infinite Fates is about a couple who are soulmates and are fates to kill one another in every life. But when Bran Blythe needs to stay alive to keep her sister alive, everything changes.

This book made me cry, laugh and uncontrollably sob as we learned about the ill-fated love story our protagonists take through the years. I truly have nothing more to say than I loved this book and wish I could forget the plot so I could experience it for the first time again. 5/5.

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[Thank you to the author, publisher and NG for allowing me to review this ARC with honesty.]

One. I loved the premise. It had me very intrigued by the synopsis.
Two. The setup was working and I found myself unable to stop reading.
Three. Things started to get a little repetitive with little information (it's okay but it did slow my reading down a bit)
Four. How do I word this? I loved the idea and set up. Was not the biggest fan of either main character. Again, I did not HATE it but I did wish there was more to this.

My Rating: 3.25 Stars (rounded down)

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Let me just say I loved the concept of this book SO so much . In a game of fates, two souls are destined to love each other for an eternity , but they end up killing one another before they will reach their 18th birthday. In every single life . They will carry the memories and the love from all their past lives , as well as the knowledge that they’ll eventually meet in the current one and have to die together once again.
I LOVED the multiple timelines and glimpses of their past encounters, and I could not not appreciate how beautifully described are being the surroundings during those time periods. At some point during certain chapters you can picture SO vividly the scenery on a hot summer day in Algeria, a street in Athens or the rich and colorful Ottoman Empire.
The idea of being bound to another soul, and finding and loving them over and over in each next life sounded so romantic to me , I was convinced I would have my heart shattered but end up obsessed with this book .
To my biggest regret, I found the book lacking emotion . I have found myself wanting to know more of Evelyn and Arden’s connection. What lies beyond that tether that pulls them together. We get small glimpses of the two of them in their past lives, but not nearly enough for us to hopelessly fall in love with them or desperately root for their fate.
I was steaming with frustration half the time because the miscommunication trope was just becoming a pinch insufferable.
The writing that was so beautiful and flowery would out of nowhere drop a boulder like “this woman killed the love of my life for sport” - and this genuinely ruined the entire idyllic setting for me . The use of slang generally was very out of place in a story so ethereal and romantic otherwise. At some point in the story we get “hurt people hurt people “ and this in my opinion just sounded straight out of an online comment section.
All in all this is a charming and profound story , written very beautifully (with small exceptions) and definitely full of hope.

Big thank you to NetGalley for a digital copy of this book !

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This is an incredibly beautiful story. It's also an incredibly sad story. It is filled with so much. So many lives lived. So many deaths. From so many years. Year after year of loving and dying. And not knowing why. Not remembering what happened to start it all. But when that final answer comes your jaw will drop. It will floor you. Unpend your heart. Break you in a way that you will not see coming.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is my all time favorite book. It's just that good. This one is my second favorite book. Ever!!!

A boy and a girl. They love each other so deeply. It's an intense kind of love. But they never give themselves to each other in that way that would bind them forever. He can't. She can't. They can't. The unknown is to hard to fathom.

A girl, Evelyn, and a boy, Arden, love each other. They can only live to be almost eighteen years old. Then one kills the other and they are reborn again in another place and time. This continues throughout but is not monotonous in any way shape or form. You turn the pages to find out why. What caused this. Each place they are different but the same. Different names. Different gender. Different in almost every way. Except they almost always fall in love and they always end up dead. Always. It has been thousands of years and still going. Until it's not.

The most frequent place and year in this story is Wales 2022. When you meet the Blythe family. When you meet a young girl who needs a bone marrow transplant. Her older sister is her only match. Will she be able to give her baby sister what she needs most? This is the place and the year that Evelyn finally finds out the truth of why this keeps happening. It's the year she finally get some kind of clouser if you will.. But at what cost?

This was such a good story. It held my attention and kept me turning the pages. I didn't want to put it down. I wanted answers. I wanted their love to prevail. I wanted evil to lose.

Thank you #NetGalley, #StMartinsPress, for this ARC.

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3.75 - 4 stars ⭐️

Tragically romantic with beautiful prose! Two fated souls who are meant to kill each other in every lifetime. Props to the author for creating such deep culture when going back in time! It was beautifully done & had the most gorgeous lyrical writing. I overall enjoyed this but the pacing dragged a little bit for me. I also would’ve love to spend more time with their origin story!

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I DNFed this book at 22%.

I struggled to decide if I would DNF this book. But ultimately, I was struggling to keep up with the all of the timeline jumps and lives the characters have lived. This was especially difficult to follow on the audio. When I realized just how cyclical the plot was, I decided to stop. The reason this was difficult was because the authors writing is gorgeous and enticing.

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In what I am coming to find is a rather unpopular opinion–I hated this book.

The premise sounded incredible–fated soulmates doomed to kill each other in every lifetime? Sign me up. Comps to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue? 5 Stars, I’m IN. But what that book had–which made it so compelling–this one completely lacks: EMOTIONAL DEPTH.

The story transitioned between present day and Evelyn and Arden’s past lives and while I can see how this structure was meant to make us feel the weight of their history and the stakes of their curse, it completely fails to do so. The past-life chapters all take place at the end of their lives–when they are already in love, already about to die–so we never get to see how that love actually developed. Their connection is something we are continuously told exists, but are never shown. And it doesn’t just feel nonexistent to the reader–it does not exist for Evelyn either. She has no memory of her earliest lives with Arden, no recollection of how their love started. And the most frustrating part? Even the author admits this!

“The very foundations of us–the moments in which our love was forged–just doesn't exist [to you]”

Exactly. IT DOESN'T EXIST. Not for her, not for us, and yet we’re expected to believe in a love that we’ve never actually seen unfold. Beyond that, the book felt repetitive, constantly cycling through different deaths without giving us anything new.

I was also misinformed that this was a Sapphic book and while Evelyn and Arden’s souls were reborn in different genders throughout time, it never felt like a genuine exploration of queerness. At best, this book features queerness and at worst it feels like cross-gender dress up without actually ever exploring what those identities mean.

I have no problems whatsoever suspending my disbelief when it comes their endless reincarnations, or the curse that binds them–but based solely on what we are shown/told in this book, I CANNOT for a second believe that these two are actually in love and at the end of the day, THAT is what killed this book for me.

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Thank you St Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!!!

Our Infinite Fates by Laura Steven is so good. It’s so beautifully written and poetic and I fell so deep in love with the characters. There were a lot of questions that I had that weren’t answered unfortunately which marks the rating down to a 3.75/5 stars for me. I found this a fun read and it pulled me out of my reading slump!

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tl;dr brilliant concept, beautiful prose, and significant execution issues. 3 stars, but I'm giving a rating of 4 stars because the plot is so unique, and the novel offers lovely and sincere queer representation.

I think that all of the problems are the result of one thing, the novel is three entirely different books. The first book is Evelyn and Arden's 1000-year-old love story (YA romantasy). The second book is Branwen Blythe's story (YA literary fiction). The third book is Evelyn's devil/villain origin story (YA horror). Instead of connecting together like puzzle pieces as the novel went on, I felt like the reverse was happening, and the different plotlines grew apart.

Stemming from this, there were serious pacing problems throughout the novel, but it really started to lag during the 2nd act when I got more and more confused as to what this novel was supposed to be. There were also aspects of the plot that didn't make sense at the time, or at the end, because they served only one of the three different stories.

For example, what was the point of revisiting Ceri Hughes or Nia's characters after Arden's identity was discovered and through to the end of the book? There was also a lot of words dedicated to the harvesting of Branwen's marrow, but this event didn't lead up to, foreshadow, or contribute to the actual climax of the novel. I also do not understand why Arden could not or would not tell Evelyn what was going on. She forgets her prior lives anyway so what difference would it have made to their outcome if he had partnered with her from the get-go to free themselves of the curse.

I don't know if I truly understood the reaping of souls concept either?

I'm a hopeless romantic and I love the idea of soul mates, and that souls recognize other souls. The fact that it doesn't matter what body the soul is in made this novel a lovely way to honor queer love.

Overall, I loved the vibes of this one and the sweeping romantic arc over centuries of time. I definitely enjoyed the read.

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TL;DR: In essence, Our Infinite Fates weaves together elements of romance, magical realism, and philosophical inquiry to examine profound questions about love, identity, and the nature of existence. Great narration, but the pacing drags, and the characters don't quite connect. Think deep thoughts, not action.

I think categorizing this as YA is a little misleading. It is compared to adult books like The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue and This is How You Lose The Time War. which are adult. Also, the characters are technically teens, but they're old souls, you know? The have the burden of thousands of lifetimes of memories.

Sofia Oxenham's narration of Our Infinite Fates lends a thoughtful, almost ethereal quality to the story, perfectly capturing the characters' ancient wisdom. Her delivery helps to emphasize the book's contemplative tone, even if the pacing remains slow.

The cover and summary kinda oversells the romance and adventure. It's a slow burn, maybe too slow. I wanted to love the characters, but didn’t really care about them. The plot was interesting, but kinda boring at points. If you want something super chill and thought-provoking, maybe give this a shot. If you want a fast-paced romance, look elsewhere.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press, Wednesday Books, and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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