So I had best just explain what I'm doing!!! This is my 52week reading challenge, in which I will read 52 books in 52 weeks and I will review them here. Plus keeping note here will help me to keep up with the challenge and keep myself going!!
So I have just finished my first book .... Life After Life - Kate Atkinson.
In one sentence this book has changed me!! Not quite as much as The Crimson Petal and the White did but it has!! It has left a lasting impression and I don't want to let them go!! So this book centres around Ursula, who is born on a snowy night in December 1910. Ursula dies as she is born, but she comes back to life again and relives her life and survives for awhile. Ursula is given chance after chance to live and to live her life right, which to me is such an interesting concept. There's so many times in my life where I would love to have been able to change what I have done, but I also find as I work my way through university that I am changing the path of my life, whether for good or bad I don't know yet but will know.
So Ursula eventually lives through the First World War and the Second in many different roles, which again is where the book gets interesting!! Its not just the fact that Ursula lives again she lives again and her life is changed!!! She manages to live due to small simple things that happen in order to prevent her dying!! These can be the smallest things from pushing a maid down the steps to rescuing a dog, to running away from a man in the street who seems harmless enough!! Again the way that Atkinson shows this in her repetition of the basic life that Ursula leads to the changes that are made in each chapter!!
After a while I found myself really rooting for Ursula and hoping that she could live and she could manage to have a happy life that she would be happy with. I have to admit I cried every time she died. Mainly due to me being emotional as the actual deaths in the novel are not as emotional to make most people cry!! However as I get so emotionally involved in a book I do find that I cry tremendously!! And this book did that to me. The fact that I am a history student also meant that looking at the history side was also interesting to me. Looking at the Second World War from both the British side, to the German side to a Wardens perspective and just a civilian perspective was a very good feat of engineering on Atkinsons side!! As I say this book really made me think and I would recommend it to anyone who wants a good read that will make them think!! Don't take it light-heartedly!!
Next on the agenda ... The Shock of the Fall - Nathan Filer.
See you soon :)
Leanne x
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