by Kate Atkinson, Audiobook narrated by Fennela Woolgar, 2013, Hachette Audio

This book is based on an interesting idea: What if a person died but came back to life to live another life based on different choices made?  It’s as if a person has nine lives like a cat but, instead of resuming after dying as if nothing had happened, this person rewinds to a point when an alternative choice was made.  These different choices could be made either by the individual or others that have had impacts on the life that would eventually would be lived.

While the idea is interesting, the execution in this book is not good.  Because some of the lives were similar, there was a great deal of redundancy.  It seems as if the main character died multiple times in the bombing of London under similar circumstances.  Because the book jumped back each time and essentially started over, it was a bit confusing to follow.  Also, there was a lot of detail and dialogue in each of the stories that was not essential and really boring.  It got to the point where I found myself saying “Not Again!” each time she died and the book rewound.

Bottom line, this book had an interesting theme that was beaten to death (multiple times).