Same Day. New Body. Still Clueless.

The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle as a Cautionary Tale

for Smart People Who Can’t Choose a Life

When was the last time you learned from your mistake? How did it make you feel?

Nobody likes to learn from their own mistakes. It’s messy. It’s humbling. It usually involves therapy.

Much easier to watch someone else screw it all up and tell yourself you’d never be that dumb.

Which is exactly what makes The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle so perversely satisfying.

Because Aiden Bishop, our unlucky protagonist, is the ultimate overachiever with no clue what he’s doing. Every day, he wakes up with a new body, a new skill set, a new identity… and every day, he squanders it.

Imagine getting eight chances, eight different perspectives, eight sets of talents - and still managing to lose the plot.

It would be funny if it weren’t so relatable.

This book isn’t just a murder mystery. It’s a grotesque little parable about what happens when you mistake motion for progress, options for purpose, versatility for clarity. It’s a career lesson in a powdered wig.

The Setup (aka: Clue dir. by Christopher Nolan)

Evelyn Hardcastle is murdered at a lavish party thrown by her ghastly aristocratic parents. Every night, at 11:00 p.m., she dies.

Aiden Bishop is trapped in a time loop, reliving the day of her death over and over, each time in the body of a different guest. He has eight days - and eight hosts - to solve the mystery and escape.

Fail, and he starts over. Memory wiped. One cryptic word carried forward like a breadcrumb.

The hosts are layered over each other like translucent skins. Aiden occupies them all at once, but only controls one at a time. It’s Inception meets Groundhog Day meets Agatha Christie meets a deeply confused Dungeon Master in a plague doctor mask.

The Writing (aka: literary taxidermy)

Let me not mince words: the prose is dreadful. Stuart Turton writes like someone who just discovered similes and hasn’t yet met an editor brave enough to intervene. He doesn’t write a scene, he drapes it in velvet, sticks a monocle on it, and demands you admire its complexity. By page 45, I was already tired of raising an eyebrow. There was still 90% left to go.

He can’t say “the chessboard was set.” He has to describe “restoring the pieces of the bedraggled army to their line. Each is placed precisely at the center of a square, its face turned towards the enemy. Clearly, there’s no place for cowards on this board.”

Right. Got it. We’re playing chess. Just say so.

This isn’t just bad style - it’s exhausting. And in a book that’s already collapsing under the weight of its own mechanics, style matters.

The Hero (aka: failson with a flair for drama)

Aiden Bishop is a nothingburger in cravat and boots. He wakes up with a single instruction: solve the murder, but immediately decides he’d rather save Evelyn (who dies no matter what), or chase Anna (who he doesn’t remember), or just generally flail and whine about the unfairness of it all.

Every host he inhabits is a potential superpower: a doctor, a fighter, a coward, a genius. But instead of leveraging them, he dithers. He’s all over the place—literally and metaphorically. You could call him a “forceful independent thinker,” but the better word is “tiresome.”

It’s no accident that he has no personality. His identity is intentionally overwritten by each host, which makes psychological sense but dramatically, it’s a mess. We don’t root for Aiden because there’s nothing to root for. He’s a meat puppet with amnesia and poor judgment.

Which brings us to…

The Career Lesson (aka: when being everyone turns you into no one)

Aiden is a brilliant allegory for the curse of the multipotentialite. The person who’s good at everything, fascinated by everything, competent in every environment—and lost as hell.

Each host gives him new access: to secrets, to skills, to truths. And yet he can’t synthesize any of it. Because he’s never still long enough to integrate.

This is what happens when you optimize for input over coherence. You become a professional chameleon, hoping one of your many skins will eventually feel like your own. But it never does.

Aiden is you, if you keep mistaking identity for utility. If you think versatility is the same as direction. If you think having many voices is the same as having your voice.

Anna (aka: the redemption arc that wasn’t)

There’s one character with potential: Anna. She’s sharper than Aiden, more competent, more grounded. For a while, you think she might be the real protagonist. But then (plot twist, yay!) she’s revealed to be a convicted terrorist. Worse, she murdered Aiden’s sister. And yet… the story wants you to forgive her. She doesn’t remember her crimes, after all. Her mind has been scrubbed. She’s technically a “new person.”

This is where Turton completely loses the plot - not just of the mystery, but of morality.

The book tries to say: “People can change.”

What it accidentally says is: “Amnesia is the same as atonement.”

And no, it’s not.

Final Notes from the Manor

There’s a version of this novel that could’ve worked. A locked-room whodunnit with an identity crisis at its core. A haunting fable about how personal transformation requires more than just seeing life from different angles, it demands integration, choice, and actual accountability.

Instead, we get a story that’s clever but joyless, convoluted but hollow, stuffed with big ideas and no voice to carry them. The pacing drags. The prose lurches. The characters are either cyphers or clichés.

The premise? Fantastic. The execution? An overcooked eight-course meal served on a carousel.

You’ll finish the book, shake your head, and say, “Well, I could have done something with that.”

Exactly. So could Aiden.

Postscript (aka: Are you stuck in the manor?)

Before you smugly close the book and wash your hands of Aiden Bishop, ask yourself this:

• Do you keep collecting skills, certifications, and side gigs, hoping that something will click?

• Do you get bored the moment mastery appears on the horizon?

• Is your resume starting to look like a casting call for a one-person improv show?

• Do you switch projects, industries, or identities every time it gets uncomfortable but tell yourself it’s “growth”?

If yes, congratulations: you may be haunted by the same ghost Aiden is - the illusion that more options will eventually add up to a direction.

Tiny exercise (5 minutes, brutal):

Write down five roles you’ve played professionally in the last five years. Not jobs—roles. Maybe you were “The Fixer,” “The Idea Guy,” “The Quiet Genius,” “The Last-Minute Saviour,” “The Translator,” “The Starter Who Never Finishes.”

Now ask:

1. Which one felt most like you, not just the most impressive?

2. Which one are you avoiding because it scares you how much it matters?

That one? That’s your Evelyn Hardcastle.

Curious what all this has to do with your story?

Message me and I’ll send you my private Reset Questionnaire—it’s weirdly accurate, occasionally uncomfortable, and surprisingly clarifying.