My husband had a couple Amazon bucks to burn, so he gifted me a copy of All You Need is Kill, by Hiroshi Sakurazaka ( Alexander O. Smith, translator).

Description from Goodreads:
When the alien Mimics invade, Keiji Kiriya is just one of many recruits shoved into a suit of battle armor called a Jacket and sent out to kill. Keiji dies on the battlefield, only to be reborn each morning to fight and die again and again. On his 158th iteration, he gets a message from a mysterious ally–the female soldier known as the Full Metal Bitch. Is she the key to Keiji’s escape or his final death?

Review:
I haven’t seen the movie and have no intention to. They cast an 18-year-old Japanese boy as Tom Cruise (who happens to be white and in his fifties). How does that even work? So, no, that has ruined the movie for me. But I won’t hold that against the book.

The book I quite enjoyed. I liked Keiji’s tone and the way, after struggling with his new reality, he just got down to the business of making due. I enjoyed the Full Metal Bitch! God, do I love a warrior woman and I really appreciated the way everyone, Keiji included, was perfectly willing to step aside and acknowledge that she was the best at what they did. There’s also a bit of a dark twist that I didn’t see coming and, no surprise, I liked it.

I did think the world-building was a little weak, but it was enough to know what was going on. My one big complaint is that no one questioned what happened between Keiji and the FMB at the end. (Trying not to use a spoiler.) But it seems, if no one knew their predicament then someone should have had a serious WTF moment and no one did.

All in all I enjoyed the book a lot.