Book info

• Title Life After Life
• Author Kate Atkinson
• Year 2013
• Genre Historical

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.

Thoughts

This book has been highly recommended to me and I was looking forward to reading it. The time travel/Groundhog Day nature of it appealed from the outset and I’m glad to say I wasn’t disappointed. From the very start, you’re on a heck of a journey with Ursula, from her birth to a variety of deaths, each one starting life over and over again.

I thought it was really well written, and easy to follow despite the difficult timelines throughout. I also liked that some time periods were jumped quickly, whereas other times we got stuck in the one spot - Bridget’s flu or getting out of the Blitz alive.

I think I enjoyed the first half of the book more than the second, but that being said, it was a nice open sort of ending allowing you to put your own spin on what happened, and yet still being somewhat of a happy conclusion.

Rating: 5 / 5