Life After Life (Todd Family, #1) in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Dec 06, 2012 Melissa rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2013, wwii

I'm embarrassed to say I didn't really understand this book. I'm a huge Kate Atkinson fan and I think she's one of the most creative writers I've ever read. And I loved the idea of this book: Ursula is born, dies, and is born again, living different -sometimes very different - versions of her life over and over again. One of my problems is that there didn't seem to be any "rules" like there usually are in books about time travel and other magical occurrences. Sometime Ursula seems to remember th ...more

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Mar 28, 2013 Christina rated it liked it

The great comedian Eddie Izzard once said "I like to end the show on a kind of 'huh' feeling, and I think I've accomplished that." If Kate Atkinson had heard that quote and said "Yes! That's exactly the kind of feeling I want to leave a reader with, too!" I wouldn't be terribly surprised. Vague puzzlement was exactly the conclusion I reached.
Now, to be fair, my reading of this book was interrupted several times so it may not be entirely the author's fault that I couldn't track what was happening The great comedian Eddie Izzard once said "I like to end the show on a kind of 'huh' feeling, and I think I've accomplished that." If Kate Atkinson had heard that quote and said "Yes! That's exactly the kind of feeling I want to leave a reader with, too!" I wouldn't be terribly surprised. Vague puzzlement was exactly the conclusion I reached.
Now, to be fair, my reading of this book was interrupted several times so it may not be entirely the author's fault that I couldn't track what was happening in which lifetime. On the other hand, it did get harder and harder to remember who these people were who kept bumping into Ursula. "Wait, there was a man and this thing might have happened - but wait, which thing? Who? What?" Ursula herself didn't vary enough that I could detect the various influences in her (overall I found her a bit bland, anyway). I found myself rushing through "lives" going "oh, just die already!"
Ursula's family life was the best part of the book, I thought, although they reminded me so strongly of the bohemian family from A.S. Byatt's "The Children's Book" (grant the Byatt family were a generation or two before) that it actually became distracting. These guys were, by and large, nicer, although there was still the complicated, sort-of unsympathetic mother and practical, science-oriented older sister (my favorite character in both books). I do have a beef with page 188 - I guess there are probably good arguments for including scenes like this in EVERY. SINGLE. LITERARY. NOVEL. WRITTEN. IN. THE. TWENTY-FIRST. CENTURY. WITH. WOMEN. IN. IT., but I've kind of had it up to here with them. It's starting to feel like an arbitrary brutality, like it's as much a staple for lit fiction as brooding, mysterious young men are for teen vampire romances.
Speaking of young men, while I wasn't hoping for a grand romance in any of Ursula's lives, Kate Atkinson has an extremely dim view of male-female relationships that are not familial, doesn't she?
Overall, interesting concept with some strong sections, but too much of the book frustrated me.
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May 12, 2013 Lisa rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: dnf

One third through and I just don't care. A little surprised because originally I thought that would totally be in my wheelhouse, but I can't spend another 350 pages trying to make that happen. ...more

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