Replay by Ken Grimwood

A 43-year-old man dies from a sudden heart attack. He wakes up at his dorm apartment as an 18-year-old version of himself. After adjusting for a few days he decides to make the best of it and acquires a fortune through sports betting and stock markets. As the owner of this giant fortune, he tries to keep himself in top shape but dies again at the same age. The cycle repeats. He wakes after death at a young age and he lives his life with different choices. He must abandon loved ones, and in one life he has a daughter, and after that he decides never to get another child as he has not only lost his daughter but she was never even born. In the next iteration he keeps his college girlfriend and only acquires a modest fortune, and he lives a pretty happy life. Next time, he is disillusioned with all that. He spends a few years partying heavily and having wild sex, until he buys an isolated farm and lives practically as a hermit. Then he hears about a new, very popular movie with rave reviews that he hasn’t heard of or watched during his earlier lives. There is only one reason why that could happen: there is someone else who is repeating lives and that person has created something really new. He finds out that there is a woman who has been experiencing similar repeats to himself. Later, they get together. But for both, the moment of rebirth is happening later and later... will there be a time when they won't be reborn again?

A very good and interesting book, with pretty logical life choices for the couple going through their repeated lives. The characters were well-described and felt real, and were people that you could care about. Apparently, there was supposed to be a sequel for this book. Alas, the author has died, so that won’t happen. There was at least one hook for the sequel: when they were trying to find other repeaters by posting advertisements about future events to major magazines, they got a letter from Australia that contained only the words ”not yet, wait”, or something to that effect. That would most likely have been something the sequel would have examined.

 311 pp.