Life After Life

Kate Atkinson
Life After Life  Cover

Life After Life

Graham Vingoe
7/8/2014
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As an avid science fiction fan, the premise behind Life after Life is one that immediately caught my attention and made me take a chance on it having known Kate Atkinson's work only vaguely beforehand. I think she did go one life too far at the end in order to "save" the life of a particular character when there appeared to have been a definite, foreshadowed ending and sometimes the changes between lifetimes weren't necessarily obvious. Portions of the book were surprisingly bleak, perhaps too bleak but overall Atkinson's handling of the premise was made worthwhile by her characters.

It will be interesting to see whether she writes further science-fictional/fantastic novels such as this, or go back to the more mainstreams fare she's better known for.