Life After Life

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

This is right up my alley. There is nothing that intrigues me more than how one decision can affect your whole life. So I loved that aspect of the book. I loved that sometimes she ended up in exactly the same predicament despite changing some details. Other times her destiny was determined by the smallest of chances, or a simple conversation. I loved how sometimes she was brave, and sometimes she was crazy. The language was beautiful..."the black bat of death..." And I learned a lot about that time period, especially when she ended up in Germany.
Time is depicted as a snake eating itself, a never ending circle, and the whole book felt vey cyclical to me. So much so, it could get a little confusing at times where you were at in each life....(was this the life where they found the dead girl...no, wait, that was 2 lives ago). The very positive critical reviews I read on this, each reviewer read the book more than once. I think a second reading would go a long way in appreciating even more nuances and foreshadowing, but I had enough of the merry go round by the time I was through. Still, it is a ride I would be willing to take again after my head clears.

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