Reincarnation Blues
You may think it would be a real bummer to have Death as a girlfriend, but for Milo he has found his true soulmate in Death, who prefers to go by Suzie.
Milo only gets to see her in the Afterlife, briefly while he prepares for his next chance at achieving perfection. After his 9,995th attempt, he learns he only gets five more tries or he disappears into... nothing.
As you follow Milo's journey through many lives and deaths, you puzzle together what it takes to achieve perfection and begin to reflect on your own life (lives?) and what kind of a home you'd earn in the Afterlife.
"You were expected to be quiet and meditative in the hours after you died. You were supposed to think about what a good job you had done (or not done). Your new home, when you got there, was a reflection of this. If you had been Ghandi, or someone similar, you'd probably get to live in a big house with a garden and a pond. If you cooked and ate cheerleaders, on the other hand, you might have to rent a shack beside the landfill"
This book is one of those that will move you from tears on the one page to laughing out loud the next. As we move from life to life with Milo, through the span of time and galaxies we encounter the consciousness of a young tribal boy who tries (and fails) to save his people, a spoiled rich kid who throws a party on the sun and gets everyone killed, an award-winning race horse, a sociopath who is killed before becoming a murderer himself, a scientist who builds the ships to escape a doomed earth and is left behind, a privileged boy turned slave turned spiritual leader and an ordinary man who leads a revolution that grants peace to the next fifty generations of people, and even more extraordinary and ordinary lives.
"All good parents taught their kids this same lesson: If everyone agreed to suffer pain or death rather than be treated unjustly, greedy people could never again gain power"
Reincarnation Blues provides a new perspective on life and makes you really consider what kind of life you lived, all while experiencing ten thousand other lives before and after yours.
" 'Listen,' said the Master, coughing 'Don't search the end of the Earth looking for your happiness. Perfection is being happy with what you are right now' "
