For Those Who Don't Believe in Love Songs
GROUNDHOG DAY mixed with SIXTEEN CANDLES and a splash of DOCTOR WHO. A boy forever reincarnated as himself meets his soulmate for the 200th time, but can she solve the puzzle and break the curse to make herself his last?
*****
Martha Beckett's life is over, or so it feels after her father moves her from California to Illinois in the middle of her junior year of high school. But on her first day in her new school, she finds a peculiar boy waiting for her. James is cute, friendly, and obviously too good to be true. Her skepticism proves justified after he confides in her his secret: after he dies, he is reincarnated as himself to live his life again and again and again...
Retaining all knowledge and skill acquired in his previous lives and with a general understanding of future events, James is effectively superhuman. And while Martha enjoys the inherent perks of associating with such a boy, she comes to learn of the despair and exhaustion underneath it all. With no permanent consequence or hope of release, James struggles to stave off nihilism with Martha his one tether to humanity.
FOR THOSE WHO DON'T BELIEVE IN LOVE SONGS is, in fact, a love story, albeit a complicated one. Can Martha reconcile with the fact that James has loved hundreds of other Marthas before her and will most likely love hundreds thereafter? Is James' choice to engage and confide in Martha irresponsible and selfish? Would she be better off living her life unaware of the cosmic freak who has loved her for millennia?
[[Winner of Watty's 2020 in Literary Fiction]]
Content and/or Trigger Warning: brief sexuality, brief violence, mild language, brief focus on suicide.
cover by @JELyrica
