Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Life After Life
by Kate Atkinson

In my late 20s I read Kate's first book 'Behind the Scenes at the Museum' which won the Whitbread Book of the Year 1995. I still have it and must re-read it, especially after finishing 'Life After Life' and then reading a review of 'Behind the Scenes....' to remind myself what happened. There are familiar themes - death, families, children. She especially seems to like the child death theme. Anyone who has read her later series of novels following  Private Detective Jackson Brodie will recognise this heartbreaking theme.

Which brings us back to 'Life After Life'. We follow the tragic life of Ursula and her family - tragic in that, from birth through to adulthood, we watch her follow different paths which ultimately always lead to her death. She is born in 1910 and lives and dies (through the aforementioned different paths) through the two World Wars, which affect her in different ways depending on which path she has taken in life. This is the Butterfly Effect in full motion. Some scenes are so tragically sad and heartbreaking you just want to moan out loud and shed many tears, and share with whoever may be in the room with you how awful such a scene was and poor poor Ursula. Then you think, but that's ok, because the next chapter she will not follow the same path and everything will be better and happy - but the future for Ursula is not often a happy one.

I read this book on my e-reader, and must admit that at times I was a bit confused with what year I was in and how old Ursula was, as the chapters continually jump back and forth in time. If I was reading a paperback, it would have been easier to flick back to the start of the chapter to remind myself of the year, but with an e-reader it's just a bit more fiddly and you don't bother. However, I found myself getting into the flow of the time changes and it wasn't a problem then.

Shortlisted for both the Women's Prize for Fiction 2013 and the Costa Novel Award 2013, this brilliant novel would be one of my contenders for Book of the Year 2013 (along with Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch).

More Than This by Patrick Ness

More Than This
by Patrick Ness

This is a book that will get you thinking. The story begins with a drowning. Sixteen year old Seth is struggling in the icy waters of an ocean - the waves dash him against rocks - he dies. But then, he wakes up - on the front path of a house. Is this heaven or hell? Is he dead or alive? Is this purgatory? You are left with these questions all through the book. Just when you think you know what's happened and where Seth is, the author throws in another conundrum and you're back to puzzling over what on earth is going on. But not in a bad way. Your interest is held as the author reveals what has happened in the past, Seth's relationship with his family and friends, the tragedy that occurred in his family (quite a horrific one too - very moving) for which Seth knows he is to blame and can never forgive himself. Seth is not alone in this strange world. There is the strong and wilful teenage girl Regine, the young Polish boy Tomasz, and the ominous black clad and black helmeted Driver (or 'Death' as Tomasz calls him) who is constantly tracking them down. As they try to answer his questions as to where they are and their purpose of being there, they help him along with answers to problems in his past life, so he starts to realise that there always was and always is 'More than this'.

Tomasz is the one character I found the most entertaining, but also the one I had the most problem with. He is twelve years old and had been learning English ready to start a new life there with his mother when he found himself in this scary new world. But his words are almost philosophical - too mature for a 12-yr-old, never mind a Polish boy just learning the language. But I will forgive the author this as he is my favourite character.

A powerful book for all you thinkers out there!