So...Life After Life. Just finished it.

If you want a (very different) slightly scifiish book set in WWII I recommend Blackout by Connie Willis.

I quite enjoyed Life After Life, but would have appreciated more exploration of what exactly was going on.

I didn't give up on it (I almost never do) but thought it was dull and uninspired. The protagonist was the dullest person with the most boring life imaginable, and if seemed cruel to make her relive those boring lives, and make us read them all.

I did find the moral of the story worthy: That we could all have bend that 'slut' or that wise aunt or that relative who committed suicide or whoever if circumstances were a little different. But ultimately, it was a light read.

Interesting that so many people loved this book. I was bored from the start, didnt engage with any of the characters, didn't find it particularly well written. Just found it really frustrating, after the 20th 'and darkness fell' I just wanted to scream. Gave up on it in the end, which isn't like me. A reviewer said that it was a poor pastiche of The Children's Book' which was sat on my shelf so have started that and am really enjoying it. Puts me off reading anything else of Kate Atkinson's.

Read today she's doing a sequel based around Teddy. Can't wait.

I don't think she chose to go back, she wasn't even properly aware of what was happening.

She seemed to have a vague deja vu about certain things, and that bit where her mother decided to buy the scissors and later on used them and there was that odd comment about it, I think it was happening to the mother too, and she also had a vague feeling that some things had happened before without really knowing what was different this time.

I loved the bit with the maid, Bridget, and the illness. And the comment about how at least nobody was pushed down the stairs, which meant something to Ursula and her mother but they didn't quite know what.

I really enjoyed the book, but yes, I would have liked something a little more to the ending too. Not sure what though. Perhaps it will have changed the next time we read it

Cote thank you. I didn't really understand the character Renee and why she has the same turn of phrase as Hugh. Sad the naval chap was cheating on Ursula but then he was on his wife too.

Re cigarette case - IIRC, we found out through the cigarette case that the older guy was cheating on her.

I hated this book, thought it was shit, especially all the stuff in Germany.

Most books have awful endings IMHO. This one was just

I loved this book.
But can somebody please tell me what happened with the cigarette case?

Just finished this book too. I loved it, it fascinated me, but I'm also totally frustrated by the ending!

I loved Behind the scenes too, trying to decide which of hers to read next.

intentional [of the author], I meant.

It was very clever. Imagine the amount of notes everywhere KA must have had to avoid continuity (or non-continuity?!) errors. Or perhaps her editor had to work extra hard.

One minus point for me was the introduction of some random extra characters towards the end: Roland, Izzy's son, for one. The book seemed to be starting off again which may have been unintentional but was rather unsatisfying for the reader.

Was not wax

The end was a complete letdown , wax expecting something amazing .

I did enjoy it although felt she didn't have control or particularly 'know' that she was living a different life apart from vague feelings of deja vu.

I took it more to mean that we all think we are going down certain paths but every day almost everything we do could have an alternative outcome which in turn affects everyone else to a degree.

It was a fascinating concept although not sure she pulled it off entirely successfully. The blitz scenes were just relentless and really did put across well just how long it went on for and how grim it must have been .

I finished this book yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Especially liked the way she left quite a lot of unanswered questions. I liked Sylvie as a character and was intrigued by her duplicity.

I wonder if she will answer some of them in her next book. I heard her being interviewed and she spoke about writing teddys story next.

I finished it this week too, I thoroughly enjoyed it having not read any of her books for a couple years.
I did get a bit cross with starting again in Berlin, and I enjoyed the slight variations of the different scenes, especially the falling wall. Also her desperate attempts to stop Bridget going to London ("darkness etc..") Some of the war scenes were very upsetting and vivid.
But I think my favourite character was Pamela actually.

And if she is conscious, can she ever die and stop the cycle of rebirth? I should imagine it would get pretty horrific reliving your life after a while. Even after she kills Hitler, she's shot, reborn and it's all to do again

I finished it last night as well. I loved it - best thing I've read for a while.

I think towards the end she did know. The last couple of times she was making conscious decisions about her path, and didn't she deliberately kill herself to set up the life where she befriends Eva to meet Hitler?

Why does Teddy thank her when he gets back from the war though? I wondered if Sylvie was doing the same thing cf the last chapter when she uses the scissors and says "practice makes perfect".

I found it compelling, especially after I'd got beyond the first part with so many versions of her birth. I loved the wartime London stuff. I'm not sure whether we're meant to think Ursula was consciously learning from her mistakes and choosing a different outcome each time, or whether she's just saying that life is a succession of chance and random events, and could take any one of a number of paths at any moment - so there are almost unlimited stories one could tell about Ursula. I found it very clever that when she was killed in the air raid the same scene then played almost identically but with another character being killed. All the deaths were characteristically graphic and shocking, and moving, and yet because you knew an alternative version was probably coming up you could remain somehow detached from them - apart from Anthony the bike boy - that one had me in tears.

Yes mumslife - it just could have done with being a bit shorter and more punchy in parts. Hard not to get bogged down by it in the middle although she did certainly get across the horror of war from all angles.

I don't think it's a book I'll ever re-read!

Finished this last night!

Also found it hard to get through despite being a great concept for a book. There were bits that seemed to drag out (the blitz) and then just as it started to get interesting as her awareness of memory dawned more strongly, it ended!

I really enjoyed her earlier books but found the last few hard to maintain interest in. Shame because I like her writing style and the characters are always strong and well crafted.