Book Review: Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

I loved Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. It's a book to read in huge chunks because you can't get enough of it, and you savor the writing and the characters. And when it ends, you close it reluctantly, relishing an excellent tale.

In 1910, Ursula Todd is born and then she dies. But then in the next section, she's born and lives. As she grows, she also dies, repeatedly and the story moves forward to World War II. I like time travel types of stories and can suspend belief as to how it could happen. From the book blurb - Does Ursula's apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? And if she can, will she? 

Atkinson's rich writing, her plot twists and turns, and her humor shine through Ursula.

P. 4  It's November 1930. A move rehearsed a hundred times. One shot. Swiftness was all, yet there was a moment, a bubble suspended in time after she had drawn the gun and leveled it at his heart when everything seemed to stop.

P. 7 February 1910  An icy rush of air, a freezing slipstream on the newly exposed skin. She is, with no warning, outside the inside and the familiar wet, tropical world has suddenly evaporated. Exposed to the elements. A pawn peeled, a nut shelled.

No breath. All the world come down to this. One breath. ......
Panic. The drowning girl, the falling bird.

You, the reader, will hold a breath as each chapter unfolds. Will Ursula thrive and move onward? Or will something happen to her, and you start over again? Layers build satisfactorily and you are transported to a sweeping time of history.

Life After Life is a stunning novel.