Reincarnation Blues isn't a story (or rather a collection of 10,000 stories) for everyone.

This story explores the many lives of a character named Milo who has been a man, a woman, a cricket, a tree, a cat, and pretty much anything else you might imagine. He is the oldest living soul and still on his journey toward "perfection" after which he will join with the great Everything. Christians would call this theosis. Buddhists would call this Nirvana. Regardless of name, he'll break the cycle and... well, he'll move on to something else, everything else.

But that's just the problem. Milo doesn't want to reach "perfection", whatever that might even mean, because he doesn't want to move on. Not only is he the consummate slacker and a bit of a rebel by nature, Milo is also in love with Death, well a Death anyway, who happens to go by the name Susie. And if Milo becomes part of the great everything, Susie likely won't be able to achieve that goal with him. He's only able to be with her between lives, which is enough of a problem on its own without the added prospect of eternal separation while experiencing some sort of ultimate communion with all other once living things.

Now, before I go further, there are some problematic parts to this book. Some REALLY PROBLEMATIC parts... Most of them are all in one particular chapter.

Spoiler

In one of his last lives Milo experiences a false rape accusation after consensual sex. This only serves as a plot device to get Milo into a space prison colony and to get him to possibly achieve perfection by forgiving his accuser. That idea left me very upset. Milo is then gang raped multiple times (as a minor) on this prison colony. There's no exploration of what that means to his soul and is treated as lightly as if Milo had stubbed a toe or worn his blue jeans inside out or any number of other goofy things.
Rape should NEVER be treated so lightly. Even if Milo has lived nearly 10,000 lives to view the experience as something transitory, readers have not and I am disappointed that the experience was treated so flippantly as to not evoke commentary or distress.

I was only able to forgive that particular section of the book after sitting with how sick it made me and why it made me so angry and why it might not make Milo so angry, especially when, due to his situation, he couldn't afford to stew in any kind of pain or anger. I didn't like it, but I didn't have to.

After a day I picked the book back up and finished it all in one setting. Poore doesn't give away the secret of how to attain perfection or what perfection is. He leaves that mostly up to the reader, which is risky, bold, and brilliant. I was also both confused and delighted by the final couple of chapters. It wasn't necessarily the plot content of those chapters that I found so comforting, but the idea explored there.

I'll be thinking of this one for a long time to come and would absolutely love to have a discussion with someone else (or several someones) about this book.