Life After Life
2013 • 545 pages
Ratings87
Average rating3.8
15
Ratings87
Average rating3.8
The PRIZE-WINNING BESTSELLER, now a major BBC1 DRAMA SERIES starring Thomasin McKenzie, Sian Clifford and James McArdle, directed by BAFTA award-winning John Crowley. 'Dazzling, witty, moving, joyful, mournful, profound... one of the best novels I've read this century' Gillian Flynn, bestselling author of GONE GIRL 'A box of delights ... it grips the reader's imagination on the first page and never lets go.' HILARY MANTEL, author of THE MIRROR AND THE LIGHT ___________________________________ What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right? During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath. During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale. What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to? Life After Life follows Ursula Todd as she lives through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. With wit and compassion, Kate Atkinson finds warmth even in life's bleakest moments, and shows an extraordinary ability to evoke the past. Here she is at her most profound and inventive, in a novel that celebrates the best and worst of ourselves. ____________________ 'Merging family saga with a fluid sense of time and an extraordinarily vivid sense of history at its most human level. A dizzying and dazzling tour de force' Daily Mail 'Absolutely brilliant...it reminded me a bit of her first book Behind the Scenes at the Museum, which is one of my most favourite books ever.' Marian Keyes, author of Rachel, Again 'An exceptional writer' Guardian '[A] magnificently tender and humane novel' Observer 'A ferociously clever writer...a big, bold novel that is enthralling, entertaining' New Statesman 'Exceptionally captivating' New York Times 'Truly brilliant...Think of Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife or David Nicholl's One Day.. a rare book that you want to start again the minute you have finished.' The Times
Featured Series
2 primary booksTodd Family is a 2-book series with 2 primary works first released in 2013 with contributions by Kate Atkinson.
Reviews with the most likes.
I was really excited to devote some time over break to reading an adult book that was one every top 10 list of the year, but alas, it was not as I had hoped. The first 100 pages of the book were zippy, witty, and interesting, but the middle 300-400 truly plodded on. The last 20 pages zipped along again, but by that point I was too annoyed that I had invested that much time for 1/4 of a good book.
Would be better as a tv show (which I just learned there is one). I don't care enough about the characters to keep reading about the MC dying and living the same thing over and over again.
After hearing this one was similar to “The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August”, I knew I had to check this one out. The mechanism for the “life after life” affect took me a little while to understand, but made sense after a while. I didn't feel that I was able to connect with the main character by the end, leaving me withdrawn from the overall direction.
I haven't read Kate Atkinson before, I saw this in a bookshop and immediately the story concept grabbed me.
What if you could live life again and again, each time taking a different path. This is what happens to Ursula, from the moment of her birth where in one reality she dies immediately after her birth but in another she lives.
The book progresses with this concept, during one childhood day at the beach she wanders too far into the sea and cannot be saved. In another a local artist spots her and saves her and life continues.
I didn't find the book confusing. I found the childhood chapters slower than those during the early war years where Ursula has so many possible futures and each so different it made fascinating reading. I don't want to give too much away but the scenario with Ursula in Germany pre Second World War was brilliantly written.
The only problem I had with the book is when your entire concept is that whenever the lead character dies time resets itself and she gets another go how on earth does it ever end...the premise that Ursula could change the future for everyone is a great concept but it doesn't fulfil when time immediately resets again and her act is wiped out. And so you get the feeling the author could be writing forever and not ever would we get a final conclusion and that is the books only flaw. It didn't feel finished and that was a little frustrating.
