The FiftySeven Lives of Alex Wayfare edition by MG Buehrlen Children eBooks
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"Beautiful prose, an intelligent plot, and a heroine as fabulous as she is unique—I couldn't put it down!" —C. J. Redwine, The Defiance Trilogy
For as long as she can remember, 17-year-old Alex Wayfare has had visions of the past. Visions that seem so real they leave her breathless, feeling as if she really was onboard a ship bound for colonial America, or rising to the top of the first Ferris wheel at the Chicago World’s Fair.
But these brushes with history are not simple jaunts back in time, nor do they come without a price. Alex's visions wrench her from her life in the present without warning, returning her with mysterious wounds and inexplicable, lasting effects. Desperate for a normal life, Alex wants to discover the meaning of her visions and get rid of them once and for all.
It isn’t until she meets Porter, a stranger who seems to know more about her than she knows about herself, that Alex learns the truth she is a Descender, capable of traveling back in time to her fifty-six past lives by accessing Limbo, the space between Life and Afterlife.
With fifty-six lifetimes to explore, historical secrets to unlock, and hidden treasures to unearth, descending back in time becomes irresistible to Alex, especially when the same mysterious boy with blue eyes keeps showing up in each one of them. But the more Alex descends, the more it becomes apparent that someone doesn’t want Alex to travel again. Ever. And will stop at nothing to make sure her current life, her fifty-seventh, is her last.
The FiftySeven Lives of Alex Wayfare edition by MG Buehrlen Children eBooks
THE FIFTY-SEVEN LIVES OF ALEX WAYFARE does all sorts of things I don't see often in YA, and especially in this kind of intricately-plotted, genre-bending, world-building-heavy YA.It gives our main character, Alex, an entire intact family unit, complete with parents, grandparents, and siblings, that is not dysfunctional in the slightest.
It puts at the center of the book a relationship that is in no way romantic, and a male lead who isn't even kind of swoony (unless you are about 40+ years older than the book's target audience, in which case 1) GOOD FOR YOU, and 2) go right ahead and swoon).
It presents three possible love interests for the main character, but at no time ever resembles a love triangle, square, hexagon, dodecahedron, or any other geometric shape. And of those three, not a single one is an obviously terrible choice.
Yet at the same time, Alex is not a She's-All-That-esque swan-in-ugly-duckling-clothing. When she takes off her nerd glasses, she is -- shockingly -- still a nerd. She never becomes magically popular. She isn't stunningly beautiful underneath her rumpled appearance. And she actually turns out to be less of a Chosen One than she originally thought.
This all brings me to the main reason I loved this book: It put characters first. A lot of time, even in good books, when there's this many EVENTS that have to happen on the pages, writers almost seem to run out of room to develop the characters. But with ALEX WAYFARE, the thing that kept me turning pages well past my bedtime wasn't the thrilling missions through time or the looming menace of the ever-nearing villain -- though those were fun too -- it was the heart in the characters. It was the fact that the characters rang true.
They reacted illogically. They made mistakes. They carried unfair prejudices. But these weren't just quirks. They weren't a laundry list of imperfections so that the characters could be more interesting. They gave the characters depth and history, even when I didn't agree with them.
Take Alex herself. At one point, she tells a boy that he should know that most girls are "shallow, shallow creatures." At first glance, a reader might be turned off by that line. That's an awfully sweeping statement to make about half the human race, isn't it? Isn't she a girl? Isn't her sister, who she adores, also a girl? Why does Alex think she's such a special snowflake?
But then you realize, Alex literally has no friends. Her only encounters with other girls are with the couple popular girls at school who bully her and gave her an ugly nickname. Everyone else seems to pretty much ignore her. She's under the impression that the entire school is constantly whispering about her, but in reality, they're probably not. It's just her perception of reality. As a result, she closes herself off and tries not to interact with anyone. Ever. So of course she thinks all girls are awful. Her only encounters with them have been negative, and as a coping mechanism, she's made sure that the only way she will continue to have contact with girls is if they seek her out. And who seeks her out? The bullies.
Vicious cycle.
This isn't the only example where Alex, or the other characters, rang true in their shortcomings. It's just one that stood out, because I remember going through a whole circuit of reactions when I read that line. Plus it's toward the end of the book, so it's fresh in my memory. I liked that MG Buehrlen didn't shy away from the less appealing aspects of her characters, but instead explored them and allowed me to see why they'd come to think or act the ways they did. In addition to being a bit prejudiced against her own gender, Alex is impulsive, naive, and kind of shockingly short-sighted at times.
But then these moments of weakness are balanced with strengths. Alex is also clever, inventive, brave, caring, and loyal. Her good points really do outweigh the bad, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching her develop and mature throughout the story. And she's not the only one. I loved her family, and how involved they all were in each other's lives. I loved Porter, her middle-aged mentor who teaches her about herself. And I loved Blue, the boy she meets over and over again in each of her lives, and Jensen, the boy on whom she blames her social misfit status.
Outside of the characters, though, I loved the story itself. I loved the creative spin on a reincarnation story, and how each journey into Alex's past highlighted a different point in history. The narrative weaves seamlessly through different eras, jumping from the modern day to Prohibition-era Chicago to a train heist in the Wild West. It kept me constantly on my toes, wondering where I'd be transported to next, and opened the door to endless possibilities in the future. And I followed the logic of the time travel pretty easily, with most of my questions being answered just a few pages after I asked them.
All in all, I loved the timey-wimey goodness that is THE FIFTY-SEVEN LIVES OF ALEX WAYFARE. It was a fun, energetic romp through history with characters I enjoyed following on their various (mis)adventures. It helped me rediscover my love of the genre, and made me excited for what's to come in the series. It ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, and when I turned the final page, I was left simultaneously satisfied and yearning for the next chapter in Alex's story. If you're a fan of time travel and adventure and history and heart, I highly recommend this one.
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The FiftySeven Lives of Alex Wayfare edition by MG Buehrlen Children eBooks Reviews
I purchased this book when it was a Daily Deal, and devoured it today. Buehrlen is gifted with creating characters that are so fascinating one wants to immediately know everything about them. I couldn't put this one down, and was disappointed to go online after I'd finished it and find that the next one doesn't come out until next year. This unique take on time travel and those wonderful potential time ripples was just fantastic. I'm looking forward to great things from Buehrlen, and eagerly anticipating the next book!
Featured in a Reading on a Theme on www.intellectualrecreation.com
Alex Wayfare has visions of the past. She will be sitting in class and then suddenly be transported to Jamestown or the World's Columbian Exposition. The thing is, these aren't visions at all. Alex is traveling to the past. In the hopes that she will finally get some answers, Alex meets with Porter who explains that Alex has lived many lives, and she can slip back into her old lives.
The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare is really interesting. At points it is a little confusing, but I take confusing in stride when I'm reading books about time travel. M.G. Buehrlen's book combines afterlife, reincarnation, an evil genius, science experiments, time travel, and soul mates. I'm looking forward to the sequel.
Buehrlen easefully weaves her readers through a complex sci-fi story line while simultaneously portraying the drama and self-deprecating angst of high school life for young women.
We meet Alex at a particularly painful moment in her young life. She is struggling to understand her "condition"--in the middle of living, without warning, she has strong visions which very much resemble the past. This condition leaves her doubting herself and makes her an easy target for bullying at school. At the same time, her sister is living with a particularly aggressive form of cancer and her survival is far from certain. Life is HARD for Alex Wayfare!
Early in the book she meets Porter, her guide to understanding that her visions are, in fact, an ability to travel to the past. However, Porter is not forthcoming, and in fact, lies. Alex is left to figure out the pieces through trail and error, risking her life and the future.
Thus, adding Porter to the mix of Alex's existing life leaves her, understandably, angry and frustrated, while, at the same time, the time travel, which she can now control, provides her a chance to see herself in a new light. It allows her to form relationships and shed some of the self-doubt created by her life.
It was, at times, hard for me to read Alex's self-deprecation. I wanted to hug her and tell her, "it's Porter's fault not yours!" But, rather than a shortcoming, this deprecation is a strength of Buehrlen's writing; it was difficult to read because it so accurately reflected back my own way of dealing with myself as a young woman. She cuts to the heart! High school is a time in life where young adults don't yet have the full freedoms of adulthood. It leads to the same kinds of anger and frustration that Alex experienced in relationship to her peers, with Porter, and with her inability to help her sister, which she then turns back onto herself in the from of self-deprecation. In this book, time travel, like taking the first steps in life after high school, allowed Alex the ability to grow, while also bringing new complexities.
I very much look forward to the next book to see where the storyline takes Alex, AND to see the ways in which this movement allows her to continue to grow.
THE FIFTY-SEVEN LIVES OF ALEX WAYFARE does all sorts of things I don't see often in YA, and especially in this kind of intricately-plotted, genre-bending, world-building-heavy YA.
It gives our main character, Alex, an entire intact family unit, complete with parents, grandparents, and siblings, that is not dysfunctional in the slightest.
It puts at the center of the book a relationship that is in no way romantic, and a male lead who isn't even kind of swoony (unless you are about 40+ years older than the book's target audience, in which case 1) GOOD FOR YOU, and 2) go right ahead and swoon).
It presents three possible love interests for the main character, but at no time ever resembles a love triangle, square, hexagon, dodecahedron, or any other geometric shape. And of those three, not a single one is an obviously terrible choice.
Yet at the same time, Alex is not a She's-All-That-esque swan-in-ugly-duckling-clothing. When she takes off her nerd glasses, she is -- shockingly -- still a nerd. She never becomes magically popular. She isn't stunningly beautiful underneath her rumpled appearance. And she actually turns out to be less of a Chosen One than she originally thought.
This all brings me to the main reason I loved this book It put characters first. A lot of time, even in good books, when there's this many EVENTS that have to happen on the pages, writers almost seem to run out of room to develop the characters. But with ALEX WAYFARE, the thing that kept me turning pages well past my bedtime wasn't the thrilling missions through time or the looming menace of the ever-nearing villain -- though those were fun too -- it was the heart in the characters. It was the fact that the characters rang true.
They reacted illogically. They made mistakes. They carried unfair prejudices. But these weren't just quirks. They weren't a laundry list of imperfections so that the characters could be more interesting. They gave the characters depth and history, even when I didn't agree with them.
Take Alex herself. At one point, she tells a boy that he should know that most girls are "shallow, shallow creatures." At first glance, a reader might be turned off by that line. That's an awfully sweeping statement to make about half the human race, isn't it? Isn't she a girl? Isn't her sister, who she adores, also a girl? Why does Alex think she's such a special snowflake?
But then you realize, Alex literally has no friends. Her only encounters with other girls are with the couple popular girls at school who bully her and gave her an ugly nickname. Everyone else seems to pretty much ignore her. She's under the impression that the entire school is constantly whispering about her, but in reality, they're probably not. It's just her perception of reality. As a result, she closes herself off and tries not to interact with anyone. Ever. So of course she thinks all girls are awful. Her only encounters with them have been negative, and as a coping mechanism, she's made sure that the only way she will continue to have contact with girls is if they seek her out. And who seeks her out? The bullies.
Vicious cycle.
This isn't the only example where Alex, or the other characters, rang true in their shortcomings. It's just one that stood out, because I remember going through a whole circuit of reactions when I read that line. Plus it's toward the end of the book, so it's fresh in my memory. I liked that MG Buehrlen didn't shy away from the less appealing aspects of her characters, but instead explored them and allowed me to see why they'd come to think or act the ways they did. In addition to being a bit prejudiced against her own gender, Alex is impulsive, naive, and kind of shockingly short-sighted at times.
But then these moments of weakness are balanced with strengths. Alex is also clever, inventive, brave, caring, and loyal. Her good points really do outweigh the bad, and I thoroughly enjoyed watching her develop and mature throughout the story. And she's not the only one. I loved her family, and how involved they all were in each other's lives. I loved Porter, her middle-aged mentor who teaches her about herself. And I loved Blue, the boy she meets over and over again in each of her lives, and Jensen, the boy on whom she blames her social misfit status.
Outside of the characters, though, I loved the story itself. I loved the creative spin on a reincarnation story, and how each journey into Alex's past highlighted a different point in history. The narrative weaves seamlessly through different eras, jumping from the modern day to Prohibition-era Chicago to a train heist in the Wild West. It kept me constantly on my toes, wondering where I'd be transported to next, and opened the door to endless possibilities in the future. And I followed the logic of the time travel pretty easily, with most of my questions being answered just a few pages after I asked them.
All in all, I loved the timey-wimey goodness that is THE FIFTY-SEVEN LIVES OF ALEX WAYFARE. It was a fun, energetic romp through history with characters I enjoyed following on their various (mis)adventures. It helped me rediscover my love of the genre, and made me excited for what's to come in the series. It ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, and when I turned the final page, I was left simultaneously satisfied and yearning for the next chapter in Alex's story. If you're a fan of time travel and adventure and history and heart, I highly recommend this one.
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