June 4, 2016

Life After Life

Author: Kate Atkinson, read by Fanella Woolgar
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Hachette Audio, 2013
Pages: 560 (12 discs)
Rating: Do Not Recommend

Synopsis: What if you could live again and again, until you got it right?

On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born, the third child of a wealthy English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in any number of ways. Ursula's world is in turmoil, facing the unspeakable evil of the two greatest wars in history. What power and force can one woman exert over the fate of civilization — if only she has the chance?

Wildly inventive, darkly comic, startlingly poignant — this is Kate Atkinson at her absolute best.

Review: I really wasn't sure about this novel when I picked it out. It sounded different in the creative sense, and I figured I had nothing to lose by trying it out. The librarian mentioned that she had loved it, and that she'd be curious to hear what I thought.

This isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea. You should have heard me trying to talk about it to my husband. He looked at me as though I had a second head on my shoulders and to hear myself tell it, I could totally understand why.

We all come into circumstances or situations in which we are required to make a choice. This book explores how our choices or decisions can send our lives in any number of different directions, with disastrous or beautiful consequences.

I liked the book until the last disc, then I found myself completely lost. I ended up being thoroughly lost, but I'm going to go back to that librarian who said she liked it, and maybe we can talk this out.

This isn't one I'd recommend, but if you do read it, I'm curious as to what your thoughts are.

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