Life After Life: A Novel

Excellent! At first, I thought the book wasn't going to be my cup of tea, but after the first few chapters I was hooked.

Ursula Todd is born in 1910 to an English family. She experiences multiple versions of her life. I had avoided this book initially, thinking it may be too repetitive, similar to Groundhog Day, but I was pleasantly surprised. The use of a single character allows the author to shed light on many aspects of WWI and WWII without having to introduce numerous characters.

I will not go into too many details since this is a book best experienced. It will likely inspire “love it or hate it” reactions. It portrays the randomness of life. As a warning, there are some gruesome descriptions of war-related violence and domestic abuse. I listened to the audio book, beautifully read by Fenella Woolgar. She reads distinctly and does an excellent job of voice acting.

The title of this made me think "life after death", like what comes after this life. But it's just a repetition of the same life, after same life, after same life. It's beautifully written and occasionally the repeated experiences bring new developments, but I think this needed to be shorter and tighter so the differences were more pronounced.

I found this book interesting. I liked the idea that if you died you could relive the same life but make a different choice at some point, thus changing the outcome of that decision. What wasn't apparent is why Ursula has this ability. The author never reveals this or tells if Ursula ever stops reliving her life. Overall, not a bad story idea. I would like to see more of a point to it, though.

This book has style going for it. Writing style. It follows Ursula who comes to describe life as a palimpsest because she has repeatedly restarted from birth until death, each time altering a "mistake" that had deadly, disastrous, or both consequences for her. The hook is an (attempted?) 1930 assassination of Hitler.
Generally, I don't like books set largely in WWII, and I've read enough books featuring a middle-class English family that I'm never looking for another. Sharing Ursula's viewpoint is a bit austere, and while some of the other characters do leave distinct impressions, they don't inspire much emotion.

This was not your typical time travel/time loop novel. Ursula doesn't wake up after every death remembering everything that had happened before. Instead, she gets glimmers of past lives - times when her life didn't end so well, choices that didn't go as planned. The specter of WWII underpins most of the story - Ursula lives through the bombing of London and the loss of her brother to war. Some of her lives are personally tragic, and others are tragic in a more situational sense. I was overwhelmed with just how devastating the war was to England (and indeed, not just WWII but the after effects of WW I).

I’ve read most of Kate Atkinson’s books, but I didn’t rush out to buy this one, as the reviews all focussed on the “branching narrative” thing and made it sound as if it would be rather gimmicky. It is gimmicky, of course, but now I finally get around to reading it (the book club picked it for this month) I have to admit that Atkinson is a good enough writer to get away with being gimmicky. It’s a very professionally assembled historical novel that gives us — multiple — convincing pictures of what it might have been like to grow up as the daughter of a middle-class Home Counties family in the first half of the 20th century.

We move pretty seamlessly from a Forster-ish view of the Todd family in its idyllic outer-suburban retreat ca. 1910 to a Stephen Spender view of the London Blitz (plus additional graphic horror that no-one writing at the time would have put in, but which we need because most of us nowadays haven’t actually lived through that kind of experience ourselves). Along the way, Atkinson gets us to think about things like the position of domestic servants, violence against women, and the limitation of educational and career opportunities for girls, all without ever seeming to be pressing any obviously anachronistic buttons. (Atkinson is from a similar background and generation to me, and her knowledge about England in the first half of the century must come from much the same kind of sources as mine, so it’s perhaps not surprising that it all rings so true…)

I’m not sure if the “multiple lives” thing actually adds much, but perhaps it does allow Atkinson to play with a wider range of ideas and settings than might comfortably have fitted into a simple linear narrative. And it does raise some interesting ideas about the arbitrariness of the kind of small events that dictate how our lives will turn out, even if we ignore all the slightly silly reincarnation and déjà-vu and “what if I went back to assassinate Hitler?” stuff.

Not good for listening, but an interesting book none-the-less.

An interesting, meditative kind of book. Lovely writing and wrenching scenes. I felt like the repetition was building to differing that never happened, which left me a bit underwhelmed at the end.

If you enjoy books with a clearly defined plot with beginning, middle and end then this is not the book for you. This novel is more like story after story. A deeply imaginative book which carries on in circles making you wonder if the spiral has an endpoint. As each story begins relatively the same the course of events follow a different path or do they? A sense of déjà vu lingers from protagonist to reader. It is not surprising that I find myself going in circles attempting to comment on such an unusual novel.

Best book I've read in a really long time. Highly recommend.

The Library of Congress informs me that this plodding novel concerns itself with reincarnation, and perhaps it does, but to me it more closely resembled one of those works, so beloved of turn of the century writers and filmmakers, which are rooted in alternate histories fueled by contingency theory positing that events, whether quotidian or earthshaking, are dependent on minute, seemingly trivial, happenstance. This approach to life goes back to the old doggerel which begins "For want of a nail" and to me is unpalatable buncombe historically. Which doesn't mean that one can't enjoy the works of art it spawns.

The novel begins with a bang with the protagonist assassinating Adolf Hitler before he can become Reichsfuhrer, and within the first fifty pages one knows that the ride is going to be bumpy, as several characters die only to be resurrected on the very next page. We bounce back and forth through time and space from a bucolic Edwardian country manor through a spell in Germany, London during the Blitz, and even occasionally onward into Swinging London. Our doughty heroine witnesses or experiences murders, rapes, corpse hunting in rubble, and many a family death, but nevertheless she persisted through it all, head held high, with her disarming sardonic wit to guide her. The author generates wonderful characters; our protagonist is easy to like and the supporting cast is well fleshed out too. But the book is hopelessly overwritten--is it really necessary to learn about the character and history of every tenant in her apartment house? Since given the premise of multiple realities, almost everything has to be narrated multiple times, the book struck me as a real slog through most of its great and repetitive length. As a conventional novel, I enjoyed a great deal of this, but after the third week, I found myself treating this as a part-time job, and became impatient with all the pretentious mumbo-jumbo about reincarnation, alternate histories, or whatever. At day's end this was all a little too Perils of Pauline for me, and did I mention that it's too long?

I really wanted to like this book, but it meandered on, and on, and on, with no real point. The writing was beautiful, but the plot was disappointing to say the least.

Alternate possible lives. What if you choose door 2 over door 1, how would that change your life? How would you be different if each time you were born you learned from it and choose a different path? Ursula grows up in the early 1900s Britain and she lives her life over and over again. I think this book is remarkable.

This would have been four stars, except then it didn't so much end as just stop, which I found really frustrating.

I found this boring. Didn’t like any of the characters. DNF

Ursula Todd, born in the decade before World War I, dies repeatedly as she grows up. Each time she dies, her life begins again, and she accumulates an increasing sense of deja vu that can steer her to avoid previous deadly situations. As she grows up, small choices can cause her different lives to diverge wildly.

Another one of my recent list of library recommendations, and again, I'm pleased with this one. It had been on my radar for a while, and I had expected to like it, so I'm not surprised that it did. I like repeating-life tropes, and so I had fairly high expectations for it. There were some really sad parts (sad in ways that I hadn't expected--I knew this was a book about war). The reflections on mortality were touching, and I found it really interesting to see the repercussions of Ursula's actions at different times. I found the book really captivating, though there were a couple timelines that I think could have been shortened a little.

I would give this 2 1/2 stars as it was a bit better than ok, but I didn't quite like it. It was a very well written book, but I was tempted to quit it at the beginning as it was a bit depressing and repetitive. But it was a book club book so felt like I should finish it. The story picked up in the middle, the characters became more developed and I was enjoying it. There was also some interesting foreshadowing that I wanted to find out what happened, but then the book ended and I felt like there wasn't a resolution. I'm sure that such an ending was supposed to have a deeper meaning, but it did not feel very satisfying.

My bad: I should have read this book instead of listening to it on audio. Then I could have been able to rate it a five. Atkinson uses a literary strategy that is kind of like the movie groundhog day. But unlike Bill Murray, her protagonist actually dies and is reborn. So a lot of confusions can happen with the repetitions. Added to that attraction is the fact that over time the protagonist figures out that her life can have a purpose, like maybe saving the world. And if you like that, how about if her lives are occuring during both World Wars, and are surrounded by characters like Hitler's girlfriend. OK, I saw some readers did not like that the pace of the book pulls you into reading faster than you can comprehend what is going on...and you will have to reread to keep understanding every time that happens. But that's like complaining about a restaurant with a long line: that means it is good! So if forcing yourself to read at a slower pace or reread to understand is not your thing, this book is not for you. I am looking forward to finding a way to watch the 4 part series BBC made from the book - heard it follows the book meticulously! Enjoy!

I would have liked this better if I could have turned my brain off. Everyone else must be having multiple alternative lives and many people must be trying to change the course of history, even before Ursula is born, right? Or is Ursula just - ugh - special? It would be nice if we were moving toward a perfect history, though.

I will start off by saying that I really like the way Kate Atkinson writes. There was a great sense of place, and memorable characters - often if I read a book with a large cast I can find it difficult to keep track of who is doing what, but I had no such problem here - some of the descriptions were wonderful, and there were nice shades of humour throughout, which I think a story such as this is much in need of. If this book had been a straightforward book about a character called Ursula, her upbringing and experiences during the war, I would have enjoyed this story a lot more. But the overriding premise introduced complications that, for me, didn't work and detracted from what would otherwise have been a great piece of historical fiction.

My enjoyment of the story peaked and troughed. The opening passages intrigued me. The first few chapters drew me in. When the tragedies started introducing themselves in numerous inventive ways my enthusiasm for the story started to wane. It was repetitive, and tiresome. It almost seemed lazy writing (this isn't a criticism I upheld for the whole book). I began to think that the character of Ursula just wasn't particularly good at staying alive, and hoped that there was one good reason why she kept coming back (and presumably that every other character travelled back in time somehow, but that's another argument I won't go into). I was very glad that as the book progressed, we weren't taken back to 1910 every time she died. It told us nothing about the main character. In the years she was growing up, Ursula was put into some very bad situations that again brought about the end of her life. Can so many bad things happen to one person? Did they make her return as a stronger peson? True she never repeated the same mistake, but I didn't see any change in her personality. She didn't evolve as a person, which is a shame because other than the fact she kept coming back, I wouldn't class her as remarkable.

The parts of the book dealing with the war were the best and the writing was excellent, and I really did feel that this would have been a much better book if it focussed solely on that. The other events described were domestic by comparison, and nothing out of the ordinary. The wartime years felt so much more realistic and genuine, with the way it affected the other characters in the story as well as the protagonist. I would have loved to have learnt more about Teddy's experiences, and wondered if the book would have been better if he had been the protagonist instead of Ursula.

The other characters in the book were varied and interesting. For some, particularly Sylvie and Izzie, their personalities changed quite drastically sometimes, and particularly their attitudes towards Ursula became sometimes unexpected, and out of character. I wasn't convinced by the scenes in which Ursula spoke to the doctor. The discussions they had often felt very forced, put there in order to explain to the reader what was happening to Ursula, whereas I thought they were unnecessary.

I was left somewhat confused by the ending, in which the narrative style altered and the plot was almost summarised, events happened with no time reference, and the final chapter seemed to have fallen out of the beginning of the book somewhere and put back in the wrong place. It was almost as if the author didn't know how to make the story end.

For me, the central storyline (by this I mean the wartime period, which was the strongest theme in the book) and the reincarnation / time travel concept did not work well together. As a sci-fi device the latter would probably have worked much better, but to me it spoilt the story. I can well imagine other novels by this author are better and I will definitely be reading more of her work, but sadly I was left feeling disappointed by this.

An interesting treatment of a coupleof standard tropes—what if you could live your life over again, and what if you could kill Hitler before he rose to power. But ultimately, it was a book about the Blitz, and it was quite grim and ultimately tiresome to read some of the same scenes over and over, although from the same character’s different perspectives each time.

Completely in love with this book. An experimental format I can get behind. Everything felt so viscerally real.

Very intriguing storyline, only a master like Atkinson could pull this off in my mind!

First in a Terrific Family Saga

Probably the first thoughts sentient humankind had (that is, after satisfying the need for safety, food, and sex) were the most basic and unknowable: who am I; where am I; and what is here, anyway? From these grew systems of finding answers, some simple, some impossibly complicated, some controlling and restrictive, and some empirical; but all falling short of answering the primal questions of our ancestors. Lumped together, we call these metaphysics. When you add some sharp dialogue, you can call it droll metaphysics. Which is to say that while you travel along with Atkinson's characters, in particular Ursula, you can smile and laugh during the journey.

In Atkinson's tale, life, at least for Ursula, is endless. She's born. Something happens very soon or much later, such as strangulation by her umbilical cord or being blow up in the London blitz. Back she comes for another go. With each resurrection, however, she gains a stronger sense she's been there and done that, strong enough to impel her to make course corrections resulting in different outcomes. All the while she remembers quotes from authors she's read, the likes of Donne, Shakespeare, Nietzsche, and others, as well as Buddhist precepts introduced to her by Dr. Kellet, to whom her mother takes her for help with her odd pronouncements. Life becomes a bit less baffling and painful when she acts on her instincts.

If you're a sci-fi fan interested in time travel books or a devotee of mystical thinking, this probably isn't the novel for you. It probably is for you if you like thinking about the meaning of life and the various possibilities of changing events with small tweaks here and there. It's especially for you if you enjoy very droll writing, which Atkinson produces well and in reams. And if you enjoy getting inside historical events, viewing them through a close-up lens, you'll definitely appreciate Atkinson's treatments of the London blitz, the Berlin bombings, daily life at the Berghof, impressions of Eva Braun and Hitler, life among the Nazi youth—everything nicely rendered and always fascinating.

Most of all, though, whatever your taste, you'll enjoy Atkinson's writing, especially her domestic dialogue, and her characters. Of note are the parents Hugh and Sylvie, the iconoclastic aunt Izzie, and, of course, Ursula, whose mind can wander strangely or defensively. As an example, in one of her lifetimes, an American college boy rapes in her own home (with dire fallout following later). After he charged off in high spirits to join her brother, she "was left to stare at the floral wallpaper. She had never noticed before that the flowers were wisteria, the same flower that grew on the arch over the back porch. This must be what in literature was referred to as 'deflowering,' she thought. It had always sounded like a rather pretty word."

Finally, while the book begins with a very dramatic, very history-altering event, Atkinson never follows up on it. We come to understand why Ursula does it but we are left in the end to contemplate the consequences for ourselves. Which you might suppose appeals to the metaphysician in us and testifies to the possibilities of infinite timelines.

The book did not live up to my expectations. It did not go to directions I wanted it to take, though it was long the finishing felt a bit rushed. The book was beautifully written but the story was just good.

How would your life be different if you were born again every time you died, and got to make changes to the things that happened? An enjoyable read, though I found it more compelling before we got the the wwii narrative which I find has been a bit overdone.

adult fiction. How badly do I want to find out how Ursula becomes Hitler's would-be assassin (if that is, indeed, what she's meant to do)? Apparently not badly enough to sit through pages and pages of the deaths and rebirths that combine to form her life story, which is in itself fairly muted and mundane (except for the likeliness of her dying any moment). Admittedly, I only got through 30 pages or so of this--not quite a fair shake--but for me it was enough. The initial press and attention that this book received has already fizzled.

The conceit of jumping through time and various versions of the same life, I found more irritating than illuminating. I did allow the author to present what life was like in both England and Germany from 1910 to about 1950. I suppose it was also an attempt to illustrate how differently a life would play out with just one small variation in events.

I had a hard time deciding whether to give this book 2 or three stars. I gave 3 because it was readable and I was curious to know where it was going.

It seemed way to similar to the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series from my childhood, or some sort o writers workshop assignment. (How many endings can you write to this scenario in 45 min?)

Didn't seem like a particularly fresh idea, and I am surprised it is so highly rated. All and all I'd give this book a big solid - Meh.