Sometimes it was harder to change the past than it was the future

It was a dark and stormy night. Again and again and again. Because Ursula Todd is fated to be reborn again and again and again.

I did this thing backwards, because I read A God in Ruins before this, but I don’t think it was a real disadvantage. I did read them some months apart, so there was time for things to settle and for all the other books that I have read since then to crowd in and take the freshness off my memories of the novel. That made my second turn with the Todd family one of discovery (again) and that had it’s merits.

I have to say that I really didn’t have a problem with the gimmicky side of the book. While it didn’t always knock it out of the park, I found it compelling and it certainly held my interest. The scope of Ursula’s lives happen in a time period that I seem to reading about a lot lately, so it’s been interesting to compare different perspectives. Mostly, I would just relax and let it come, because even if the current life was kind of meh, things like this could happen:

“Her heart swelled with the high holiness of it all. Imminence was all around. She was both warrior and shining spear. She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.”

Atkinson can clearly write her ass off, I just personally had trouble connecting with Ursula herself. But it’s not her, it’s me.