“Most people muddled through events and only in retrospect realized their significance.”
Perhaps it is no coincidence that I've read a number of books in 2020 that are founded on the concept of alternate lives. After wasting something like four years on an off in a toxic relationship, the idea of an alternate universe with better choices is one that is full of appeal.
Life after Life has sat in my 'to be read' pile for quite sometime now and I both started, and finished it on New Year's Eve 2020. A baby is born dead in the winter of 1910, her death resets and next chapter the same child lives, so the novel continues with constant death and re-sets with alternate realities. Will she live to kill Hitler or have children in Germany or ??? So many possibilities in a novel that is upwards of six hundred pages.
My reading journey on this one was full of ups and downs and I think that's why I'm not giving it top marks. That is to say I have some reservations, but ultimately its an interesting read. Perhaps my critique stems from reading The Midnight Library which I much preferred in terms of structure and content.
If hindsight is 20-20 then, Ursula can see all through the ages and her journey from Fox Corner is never dull.
4 out of 5 : a journey through the ages.
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