Life After Life

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Atkinson, Kate	4-week checkout	Due 04-26-2024
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / General / Atkinson, Kate	4-week checkout	Due 05-14-2024

"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 to an 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 a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war. Does Ursula's apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? And if she can -- will she? Darkly comic, startlingly poignant, and utterly original -- this is Kate Atkinson at her absolute best. "-- Provided by publisher.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Good Read submitted by mbuhalis on June 23, 2013, 12:47pm I enjoyed this book immensely. It was fast paced, interesting and well written. The archaic English vocabulary was fun to look up and when I was finished I wanted to read it again.

2013 Favorite Book submitted by zornm on August 10, 2013, 1:46pm This is a fabulous novel. When I discovered that the book would not be a continuation of the Jackson Brodie series, I was disappointed. However, I have to say this may be the author's masterpiece. It is that good. Magical use of time. Mesmerizing storylines. Unforgettable characters. Sublime writing. This is the best thing I have read this year. Five stars indeed!(less)

One of my new favorites submitted by samanthar on June 15, 2015, 11:32am I absolutely loved this book. It is beautifully written, with deep and believable characters. It is a bit long, but I couldn't put it down because I just had to see what would happen next. A truly unique and thoughtful book. I recommend for everyone.

It really comes together at the end! submitted by sfrantom on June 21, 2015, 9:27pm This is an intriguing mystery with clues dropped in throughout the pages. This book took a bit to get started due to the jumping around it did, but once the story gets moving, the characters really capture your interest, and the way the timeline moves is really very interesting, with a nice "full circle" ending!

Highly recommended submitted by Sara W on August 20, 2015, 4:13pm I have recommended this book to many people - it fits in many genres. Literary fiction fans will enjoy it because the structure is incredibly unique and Atkinson's writing is divine. Historical fiction fans will enjoy it because the pre-WWII British life is so charmingly drawn, and the deprivation of the war years and the desperation of the post-war era are positively pervasive. It shares a border with fantasy as well, because of it's very unusual premise, in which the main character lives her life over and over again.

I enjoyed the book immensely, but I did find the close of some episodes to be so depressing and so affecting, that I struggled to get the end. I was actually looking forward to the book ending so that my emotional roller coaster would finally stop. But the ending is so perfectly done, that it really just sent me on a bonus round of crying over the fates of different characters.

This is a book that absolutely stays with you. It's an excellent fit for book groups, and fairly cries out for discussion with others. Read it, and bring a friend!

A great read submitted by crankycrack on June 20, 2016, 11:40pm It was excellent. Please read it.

Meh submitted by Susan4Pax -prev. sueij- on August 27, 2016, 4:00pm This was good, but I wasn't hooked. The premise was interesting... though I'm not going to say too much, because it isn't completely obvious from the very start and would spoil the book to say. Let's just say that like all of us, the main character gets to make choices in her life, and what she chooses defines how her life plays out from there, though in this novel, that connection is more obvious than in most lives.

What I think I didn't love about this book is that despite Ursula's awareness at some points in her life that her choices were significant, she still chose to lead a life that was, by most accounts, quite staid and dull. In some ways this makes sense and is internally consistent to the story and to her personality. That's fine.

But as a reader, if you want to give me 500 pages of someone's life, you simply have to make it more interesting than this. Though the details of life in England during the WWII bombings were interesting, and I can envision that time and place much better than I could before, that still was hardly enough to get me to pick the book up for 500 pages, and if it wasn't a book club selection, I would have had a hard time finishing.

Really good submitted by KOH on August 8, 2017, 2:25pm I loved it! Really interesting premise.

Entertaining submitted by amandaberry on August 26, 2017, 1:59pm I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I loved the premise and it was beautifully executed.

Another great read... submitted by k8kdelaney on June 25, 2018, 9:26pm I've been reading Kate Atkinson since she first published "Behind the Scenes at the Museum" in the late 90s. Her books are reliably interesting and engaging!

A great story of radical renewal submitted by sVfGI7Glt2pz7GZgVB90 on June 16, 2020, 12:42pm The enthralling narrative of Ursula Todd, who is born and dies in 1910 and is then reborn over and over into the same life, things going a little bit in a different way on every occasion. She carries memories onward, and as the world marches through one war and then into another, you'll wonder if she will be capable of shifting the course of history.

Life submitted by Anthany on July 14, 2020, 9:18am Life after life

this is Atkinson's best! submitted by kath on July 31, 2021, 12:30pm I love all of her books. But this book is her best work. Just read it.
It is engaging from the start and just gets better

hi submitted by MONEY on June 9, 2023, 12:45pm good

A beautiful book submitted by Helengio on June 13, 2023, 9:15am This is a beautiful novel. It was my first time reading her work and I still believe it's her best. It was a charming story and hard to put down.