Kate Atkinson's Life after life: A second read that left me wanting

A little bit of background📃

I have been reading Kate Atkinson's books for as long as I can remember. Her writing is so quintessentially British, her dry wit woven through cracking stories of eccentric and complex characters with strong evocation of the time period.

Life after life is the first of two books about the Todd family, this one with Ursula at the heart of the story. The follow-up book, God in ruins, was published two years later. It follows the exploits of Ursula's brother, Teddy. I read Life after life some years ago and recently gave it a second read. See what I thought of the book after my second go-around.

You can also read my review of another historical fiction novel, Shrines of gaiety, her short story collection, and the Jackson Brodie series. 

Life after life | Published March 2013 | Read again January 2026

The story📖

The book opens with Ursula's birth on a cold and snowy night in 1910 to a wealthy banker and his wife. Ursula dies without taking a breath. However, the book then takes the reader on a sliding doors journey through multiple versions of Ursula. She dies and is reborn, taking different pathways through the burgeoning 20th century, with all its historically important moments woven into the story.

Life after life is a collage of Ursula's lives. She dies many time, once from falling off a roof, later from gas inhalation, and as a victim of domestic violence. Each time she is reborn as the familiar Ursula, surrounded by her eccentric family, sometimes with memories of past lives and other times not. Ursula's many lives are explored multiple times, with the intention that small changes will send her on different pathways.

My thoughts on the book💭

I have so many mixed feelings about Life after life after my second read. I'll start with the positives. The sheer Britishness of the book is almost enough to make it a stellar read. I loved the bonkers, eccentric Todd family in all their posh glory. The dialogue throughout the book is completely on point. Ursula herself, her kind but largely absent father, her indifferent mother, her self-centred aunt Izzie, and her band of siblings make for a fascinating read. The other stellar part of the book is the exploration of Ursula's war experiences. Atkinson does an incredible job of world-building here, painting a haunting picture of life during the London Blitz.

Atkinson is a gifted storyteller and it's easy to be caught up in the lyrical narrative. However, upon a second read, I found myself a bit lost as the book wore on. There is no doubt that the book is clever, but Atkinson spends too much time recreating Ursula's lives with little differentiation and lesson-learning. The book is billed as an experiment in choices and consequences, but these ideas seem oddly absent from the book. The consequences of Ursula's choices in her various lives are not very deeply explored. I felt a little giddy by the end of it from all the repeated "lives". Some of them, too, lead nowhere terribly interesting and the sheer number of them is overwhelming.

The book would have worked better if Atkinson had picked just a few sliding doors moments and dug deep into the consequences of Ursula's decisions as she navigated each pathway. This would have made for a less confusing and repetitive read and more clarity for the reader over the book's central messages. And if you stop to think about it, all of Ursula's lives are pretty sad and depressing.

In sum📝

I cannot fault Atkinson's writing. It always draws me in. That said, I could have read a book about Ursula's life in the usual chronological way and would have been perfectly satisfied, especially if all the bonkers family members were more fleshed out. The book asks: What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right? I didn't get this message, though, and I am not convinced Ursula got it right or learnt anything valuable from her multiple goes at it. Was Atkinson's intention to make a statement about the unpredictable and fickle nature of fate and destiny? I'm not sure, as the end result of Life after life is a beautifully-written but somewhat confusing tale that misses the opportunity to delve deep into the consequences of our actions.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐