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Ursula Todd is born in England, on a snowy night in 1910. Alas, she dies with the cord wrapped around her neck.
Ursula Todd is born in England, on a snowy night in 1910. She survives her difficult birth, but then there's the 1918 influenza pandemic...
Ursula Todd is born in England, on a snowy night in 1910...
Ursula doesn't remember her previous lives, exactly, but she does sometimes get feelings that are clearly based on previous disasters, and uses them to avoid dying, or going down a bad path, or someone else dying. Sometimes this is darkly comic, as when she finds it extremely difficult to avoid catching influenza from a family servant, and tries increasingly outrageous and inventive strategies to avoid this fate. Sometimes it's much more serious, especially once we get to WWII and avoiding her own death or anyone's death feels like an impossible task, even with her extra knowledge.
This novel was incredibly gripping. It's fairly long but I read it over two or three nights. In particular, the depiction of the Blitz was one of the most vivid and horrifying I've ever read. The book has plenty of lighter moments and ordinary family drama, but it's the WW II portions that really stick in my mind. The structure is very well-done.
Warnings for basically everything, including but not limited to rape, domestic violence (this was the most disturbing section for me), suicide, child and animal death, war, etc.
Spoilers!
( Read more... )
Would you recommend any other of Atkinson's books?
Life After Life
Ursula Todd is born in England, on a snowy night in 1910. She survives her difficult birth, but then there's the 1918 influenza pandemic...
Ursula Todd is born in England, on a snowy night in 1910...
Ursula doesn't remember her previous lives, exactly, but she does sometimes get feelings that are clearly based on previous disasters, and uses them to avoid dying, or going down a bad path, or someone else dying. Sometimes this is darkly comic, as when she finds it extremely difficult to avoid catching influenza from a family servant, and tries increasingly outrageous and inventive strategies to avoid this fate. Sometimes it's much more serious, especially once we get to WWII and avoiding her own death or anyone's death feels like an impossible task, even with her extra knowledge.
This novel was incredibly gripping. It's fairly long but I read it over two or three nights. In particular, the depiction of the Blitz was one of the most vivid and horrifying I've ever read. The book has plenty of lighter moments and ordinary family drama, but it's the WW II portions that really stick in my mind. The structure is very well-done.
Warnings for basically everything, including but not limited to rape, domestic violence (this was the most disturbing section for me), suicide, child and animal death, war, etc.
Spoilers!
( Read more... )
Would you recommend any other of Atkinson's books?
Life After Life
