Review: Life After Life

Life After Life Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



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First of all, Kate Atkinson is an extraordinary writer who crafts beautiful details.

Her prose was a breath of fresh air after starting and stopping more than three books on my Kindle because of formulaic writing. (I did finish one of them, but only because I was on a plane.)

Atkinson explores the life of Ursula, who has an uncanny sense of deja vu which haunts her and distances her from her family. Her memory is filled with previous experiences. Did they really happen? Can she change her life if she makes different choices? Should she?

The story follows multiple timelines, which is odd at first, but later seems quite ordinary. Sometimes I even rooted for her to change the timeline. (Ursula, you don't have to have this life. You can choose something else. You can change the present by changing the past.)

And then she always did. Or mostly.

By the end, I wondered if she had truly lived all these lives or if she had imagined them or . . .

Such a haunting ending. Very unsatisfying to me since I do like endings that help me make sense of the book, and I finished the book with more questions than I had in the middle of the book. What was real?

And perhaps that is the meaning. What is real? What is reality?
Or not.

There is a sequel that follows the life of Teddy, Ursula's favorite brother, and perhaps Life After Life will make more sense if I read that. Or maybe I will be more confused.

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