From the Bookshelf of 2015 Reading Challenge [Closed]…

Life After Life (Todd Family, #1)

Kate Atkinson

Discussion: . Week 1: More Than 500 Pages

Why we're reading this: Week 1 - a book over 500 pages
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. Week 1: More Than 500 Pages

* Week 1: Introduction
By Jessica · 102 posts · 1093 views

last updated Aug 11, 2015 02:06PM

* Week 1: Progress Post
By Jessica · 99 posts · 421 views

last updated Nov 06, 2015 06:29AM

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What Members Thought

Dec 27, 2020 Nadin Doughem rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: novel, i-own-this-book, english-literature

What if you are given another chance to live another life?
Turn things right and avoid previous mistakes. How would that be?
How about having a couple of chances, maybe three, or more, or even an infinite number of trials?!

Ursula, a girl born amidst the world wars. In one life, she is born dead in her mother's womb, while in another she dies due to her husband's act of violence.
She dies falling out of a window.
She dies because of a bombing during WWII.
She dies as an old lone widow.
She dies as a li What if you are given another chance to live another life?
Turn things right and avoid previous mistakes. How would that be?
How about having a couple of chances, maybe three, or more, or even an infinite number of trials?!

Ursula, a girl born amidst the world wars. In one life, she is born dead in her mother's womb, while in another she dies due to her husband's act of violence.
She dies falling out of a window.
She dies because of a bombing during WWII.
She dies as an old lone widow.
She dies as a little girl!

In one life, she gets sexually harassed and lives her entire life shunned and doomed as a repercussion of the incident.
In another life, she stands up and fights for herself and her dignity, totally changing the course of what has destroyed her previous life and not knowing what she has been rescued from subconsciously.

Ursula had plenty of lives and mentioning them in a single review would take long hours to cover and extensive effort to recall.

Kate Atkinson had brought an excellent idea that keeps looming around our minds. It is the idea of getting a second chance. The thought of how we could alter our lives through simple actions and thoughts. How life is so ironic that it could end in a glimpse and then ultimately .. darkness falls.

In addition, it was the idea of the butterfly effect. How a simple action can lead to a series of different consequences eventually changing one's own destiny.

However, I do believe in fate, and I believe that although we do have the free will, yet we are going around and about to our ultimate predestination.

I liked the book and the idea, yet it turned out to be quite boring as there was a lot of repetition in the scenes with slight differences. Ursula had so many lives that at some point the story felt dull and monotonous.

So, are we given other chances? I don't think so. And I don't want to even if it was applicable. On the contrary, I admire the quote by Mae West saying:

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”

https://youtu.be/9nuy3ynajlI
...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Dec 21, 2014 Michelle rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: abandoned

Imagine being handed a single book and being told this is the only book you can read. Now read it. Over and over and over again.

That is this book in the nutshell. The book starts with the birth of the main character. Then she dies. That's not so much a spoiler, it's pretty much the plot. She dies and the story zips back to her birth and re-tells itself again from that beginning till the next time she dies. Each time she is born she lives a bit longer and dies a bit differently. I got about half ...more

1 like · Like · see review