Helpful Score: 8
Throughout the span of WWI to the 1960s, Ursula is unaware of dying multiple deaths and being reborn time and again. She does, however, have a sixth sense -- a sense of déjà vu appears whenever the most stressful or horrific episodes in her life are to occur. Because of this sixth sense, Ursula is able to change her own history and make her future futures (?) a little bit more content and livable. The writing is just beautiful and the authors attention to detail makes for very realistic and vivid characters.
Helpful Score: 6
This is a difficult book to review. It is extremely well written but can be quite confusing. The author undertook a very difficult task in keeping the story flowing. I enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it.
Helpful Score: 5
Really fascinating book-takes a few chapters to figure it out, but hang in there. Ursula Todd is an interesting girl/woman-I enjoyed it a lot. One of those books you make time to read. There were times I went back to previously read chapters to figure some things out, but I soon got 'it'. The only parts I had trouble accepting were the -SLIGHT SPOILER HERE- sections with Hitler. Otherwise an amazing book.
Helpful Score: 5
This book started slowly for me. In fact, I found the book's central theme (revealed in the first few pages) tedious at first. I always give a book at least 50 pages before I throw in the towel. With this book, it took me over 100 pages before I was hooked, then I couldn't put it down. It is as much an homage to the brave people who survived the London Blitz and the Second World War as it is a portrait of a young woman and an English family in the first half of the twentieth century.
Helpful Score: 3
While the book is engaging is some passages, and concept certainly has a lot of possibilities, the story's progress is too slow. So, despite the book being too long, it never goes anywhere.
Helpful Score: 2
This one took me longer than normal to read because I had to go back and reread paragraphs and pages and chapters again and again. Just to make sure I was understanding exactly what was happening. But that's not a bad thing! I was consumed by Life After Life. Consumed by Ursula and her family and her many lives. It's also one of those books that you have to keep putting down so you can Google historical occurrences or maps so you can get a proper grasp of the time. I felt much smarter after reading it. Kate Atkinson is one of the finest fiction writers of the 21st century. Her mind is intimidating and brilliant.
Helpful Score: 1
I love Kate Atkinson books - this one being no exception and maybe my favorite. Trying to explain the concept of being reborn over and over without sounding too gimmicky is really hard. This is simply a story of one girl's life from birth to WW1 through WW2 with different twists each time her path is revisited. While it took some getting used to, I found myself waiting for the next "throw away" scenario. What a fantastic time Ms. Atkinson must have had coming up with the simplest changes making a whole different life - basically a different book!
Helpful Score: 1
Did you ever wish you could have a do over at life? Ursula Todd gets this chance over and over along with the opportunity to change the fate of the world. It really made me think about how the smallest change can not only have a profound affect on your life, but possibly the entire world. I liked the way Atkinson interweaves world events with Ursula's life. The concept deserves five stars, but there were parts that really dragged and lost my attention, so overall it's a 3 for me.
Intriguing story, but sometimes hard to follow as events are retold from different time periods.
Unless it's a dastardly villain you don't usually root for the main character in a book to die. But I found myself doing just that in this story. It's an intriguing idea and well thought out for the most part. A little too long, and there isn't really an explanation or wrap-up given at the end. You can imagine Ursula keeps re-living ad infinitum (or maybe until she dies of old age?)
This is one of the strangest books I have ever read. It's very confusing going back and forth between years and eras, and the characters were very flat to me. Have no clue how this is on the best seller list.
I enjoyed this sweet story. I did not find it drawn-out or slow, and caught on to Atkinson's writing fairly early on. It is an interesting take on cause and effect, life's choices and paths. I also enjoyed the peek into a British family in the 1910-1950s.
Maybe try the audiobook with the wonderful British narrator if reading becomes repetitive.
Maybe try the audiobook with the wonderful British narrator if reading becomes repetitive.
In concept it could have been good, but it was way too long and way too repetitive. At times I found myself skimming because I was re-reading the same scene again and again. I seldom quit a book that I've started and I didn't quit this one either - but largely because it was a book club read and I wanted to be able to discuss it at our meeting. For the record - most of my book club group felt the same way about the book.
Interesting but not as good as I had imagined.
It was a good enough book, a good enough story, with a good enough framework, but there was just something that didnt connect with me the way Id hoped it would. I wanted to find myself enraptured in the different ways a life can go and how small things make such big differences in the end, but ultimately I found myself disconnected from this idea. Perhaps its the endless restarts, but it became a bit hum-drum after awhile.
Ursula Todd is a fascinating character, but coincidentally I feel like I didnt get to know her very well (despite having experienced a plethora of her life/lives).
Ursula Todd is a fascinating character, but coincidentally I feel like I didnt get to know her very well (despite having experienced a plethora of her life/lives).
Ursula lives an extraordinary life. She is continuously reborn to live her life solving her problems and the problems of her friends, family and country. Wonderfully written, sad, gripping novel. I kept waiting for Ursula to die just to see what would happen in her next life. The images of WWI and WWII are horrible.
This book is at first very bizarre. How does one person's life affect all of those around her? Ursula is the main character and focus of the story. As a young child, she drowns. Then she dies falling from a roof. Then she dies as a teen in the Spanish flu epidemic. Then she is killed by an abusive husband... Each time, she is born into the same family on the same date and in the same year. And each time, as her life progresses to those mistakes, her subconscious recognizes them and she makes a small change, thus causing a detour in her circumstances, so that it does not happen at all, or is changed is some way. The reader sees her life repeated over and over, with the tiny changes that allow her to move on to her later life. The main part of her adult life is during WW11. I could not have predicted how this book would end! When it did, I found the ending to be a big surprise and richly rewarding. An amazing story! D.
At first I wasn't too sure about this book. In the beginning I was thnking: This is a bummer. I have to watch this kid die over and over.
But the book grew on me. I love the idea of alternative lives. The characters were interesting and I'm happy to have read it.
But the book grew on me. I love the idea of alternative lives. The characters were interesting and I'm happy to have read it.
Warning some spoilers ahead
If you're reading this review, you probably already know the premise of Life after Life. The cover blurb sums it up: Ursula Todd is born, dies, but is born again so that she gets another chance to live. Every death sends her back to the beginning. If you've ever heard of parallel worlds you'll find this concept easy to follow. The author does it very well by showing how small decisions have big impacts. I found this book a fast and entertaining read; and despite what you might think at the start,the author doesn't make us read the very beginning of each life after she makes it out of infancy. It's very evocative, very compelling writing. The descriptions of life in WWII in particular are vivid and gripping.
But where is it going? One of the characters in the novel says something like, "What if you could live your life over and over till you got it right?" The prologue of the book certainly indicates that's whats happening. After several iterations Ursula has a strong sense of deja-vu, which enables her to avoid previous fatal encounters and even to know in advance the names of people she has apparently never met. Some of the choices that lead to her survival doom other people. After a series of lives that all end the same way, she does something different and we finally get to the scenes in the prologue. I thought, this is it, this is why she's come back so many times!
But it's not. She dies there too, and comes back yet again. Here's where I started mumbling to myself. If the earlier (very satisfying) scene were The Reason, if it were the right decision, she shouldn't have to come back. Or if she did, she'd have to repeat that scene over and over again for as long as she kept being reborn. But in the next life, she takes yet another path. Oh wait, that one has a good outcome too, maybe that was the right decision. But no, the book ends with a familiar scene set just before her birth, implying that this cycle will go on for eternity. That is a fascinating idea too, but it wasn't the story that I expected after reading the prologue.
I suspect if you know a bit about various philosophies of reincarnation, fate, and so forth you will get more out of this book than someone like me, who reads for mere entertainment. I certainly could have missed some clues. But it's excellent entertainment even if you're not a philosopher, and I'm still thinking about it a few days later, which doesn't usually happen. Highly recommended.
If you're reading this review, you probably already know the premise of Life after Life. The cover blurb sums it up: Ursula Todd is born, dies, but is born again so that she gets another chance to live. Every death sends her back to the beginning. If you've ever heard of parallel worlds you'll find this concept easy to follow. The author does it very well by showing how small decisions have big impacts. I found this book a fast and entertaining read; and despite what you might think at the start,the author doesn't make us read the very beginning of each life after she makes it out of infancy. It's very evocative, very compelling writing. The descriptions of life in WWII in particular are vivid and gripping.
But where is it going? One of the characters in the novel says something like, "What if you could live your life over and over till you got it right?" The prologue of the book certainly indicates that's whats happening. After several iterations Ursula has a strong sense of deja-vu, which enables her to avoid previous fatal encounters and even to know in advance the names of people she has apparently never met. Some of the choices that lead to her survival doom other people. After a series of lives that all end the same way, she does something different and we finally get to the scenes in the prologue. I thought, this is it, this is why she's come back so many times!
But it's not. She dies there too, and comes back yet again. Here's where I started mumbling to myself. If the earlier (very satisfying) scene were The Reason, if it were the right decision, she shouldn't have to come back. Or if she did, she'd have to repeat that scene over and over again for as long as she kept being reborn. But in the next life, she takes yet another path. Oh wait, that one has a good outcome too, maybe that was the right decision. But no, the book ends with a familiar scene set just before her birth, implying that this cycle will go on for eternity. That is a fascinating idea too, but it wasn't the story that I expected after reading the prologue.
I suspect if you know a bit about various philosophies of reincarnation, fate, and so forth you will get more out of this book than someone like me, who reads for mere entertainment. I certainly could have missed some clues. But it's excellent entertainment even if you're not a philosopher, and I'm still thinking about it a few days later, which doesn't usually happen. Highly recommended.
