Not my ideal choice for a first pick, but it was a book club selection that I was supposed to have read back in Nov/Dec, and I’m nothing if not an extraordinary procrastinator. I persevered through this with the gusto of someone who is determined to stick with a New Years Resolution. If I picked this up in October, I couldn’t guarantee the same enthusiasm.
Life After Life was one of those books that I finished and said, “I think I liked it? Maybe? I need to think about it more…”.
The book centres around Ursula Todd, and her ability to keep reliving and rewriting her life after each time she dies. It’s an interesting premise, and Atkinson layers these “do-overs” in an interesting way for the most part. At times it got tedious, and the connections & revelations weren’t entirely clear. But it is interesting to explore the idea that one moment, one choice, one interaction, could alter the whole course of your life (or end it).
Overall an interesting premise, but probably won’t make it onto my shelf of books to re-read.
A lot of people I know no Goodreads could not get into this one either.
I noticed the same thing – it seems like a book that a lot of people WANT to love… but just feel ‘mleh’ about. I found it frustrating because the story would get rolling, and you’d get invested in the characters, and then she would die abruptly and the next life would take her in a totally different direction and you wouldn’t get closure regarding the last plot.
I agree with you completely about this: “At times it got tedious, and the connections & revelations weren’t entirely clear. ”
I think it needed a better editor. I noted in my review of this for CBR6 that i just didn’t feel like it had a greater meaning.