Life After Life

See? I read things besides YA!

Life After Life is by Kate Atkinson, a bestselling author with an impressive backlist of books. When this book came out a few years ago, everyone was talking about it and I desperately wanted to read it. But then, there were other books I desperately wanted to read, and I was in school, and it was really thick, and and and. You know how it goes. Ultimately, I'm glad I waited. If I had read this when it came out and when everyone was hyped up about it, I would have been desperately disappointed.

It was OK. At first it was really confusing.  It follows Ursula Todd, a British girl born in 1910 who dies on the day she's born. You're probably wondering: wait, the main character is dead? The answer is yes and no. Her life is saved when the physician snips the cord around her throat, and she takes her first breath. As Ursula grows up, she dies numerous times. But then, time resets and she has the chance to live these moments over--to change whatever it is that killed her. The catch is, no one actually knows this is happening to her. It's like the reader is a god looking down on the world and watching another god reset this girl's life over and over to see what will happen.

Ursula only experiences very strong senses of deja vu. She knows something terrible is going to happen and that she can find a way to prevent it. This is especially poignant when World War I ends in 1918 and the family's maidservant goes out with her beau to join the crowds of people celebrating. Know what else happens in 1918? The Great Influenza. I'll let you draw your own conclusions about what happens. #nospoilers

It was interesting to read the same experiences and watch them play out differently. It was interesting to see what a huge impact something that happened when she turned 16 has on the rest of her life, and then how her life changed if that didn't happen. It was almost like a choose your own adventure story. You remember those, right?

Overall, I liked it. It was well written. It wasn't a bad story. It just wasn't riveting. It might have been more interesting if I had read it for a book club, if I was planning to discuss the different events with a group of people. But having read it on my own, it wasn't what I was expecting. And your expectations can make a huge difference in how you feel about a story. Sometimes, the there's too much hype.