I started reading All You Need Is Kill after a few friends recommended it to me. The only thing I knew about it was that a soldier dies and must live the previous two days over and over again.
I was extremely, pleasantly, surprised at the direction this book took. At just around two hundred pages long, I finished it in one sitting.
Summary: Aliens, known as Mimics, invade the world. The story revolves around [Keiji Kiriya] -- a raw, green recruit who is given a suit of battle armor, called a "Jacket", and is ordered out onto the battlefield.
Keiji Kiriya dies on the first day of fighting. The only problem is: he doesn't stay dead. At least, not in the normal sense.
He's reborn prior to the battle, gets sent BACK into the battlefield, and dies yet again. This cycle repeats itself a hundred-something odd times, but as he 'loops', he becomes aware that he CAN, in fact, change what happens each time he loops back in time.
Keiji becomes determined to change his fate of dying. During the cycle, and at different points during that cycle, he meets a legendary soldier, Rita Vrataski, whose nicknamed "Full Metal Bitch": a US Special Forces soldier whose supposedly a hardcore battle junky.
But like a true bad-ass woman, there's more to her than meets the eye. And it's not pink frilly dresses.
Rather than doing a lengthy review, I'll just hit a few high points that I really enjoyed.