Ursula Todd is born in 1910 and continues to be reincarnated in her same life over and over throughout Life after Life. Ursula had some pretty interesting lives within one time period! One life she is an alcoholic with a abusive husband, another she is a part of the rescue effort to pull people from bombed buildings in London during WWII. And another life she's living in Germany as Hitler rises to power + more. So you may be asking, what is the point of all of these lives? Is Ursula meant for something greater since she keeps getting life after life to get hers right? I'm not actually sure the book ever answers that. 
 My real problem with this book is I'm not sure it ever really gets anywhere. Ursula does lead some fascinating lives, although some are more fascinating than others, but the climax and conclusion of the book left me totally unsatisfied. It would seem to me if Ursula is fortunate (or to some maybe unfortunate enough) to keep giving life another try, shouldn't there be a point? It's hard to say more without completely giving away the book so I won't but for all of Atkinson's detailed and interesting characters, I came away wondering if anything was truly accomplished. 
 For me this book did not really live up to the hype, but if you're a historical fiction fan who enjoys the idea of reincarnation, you may enjoy this. While the book does come in over 500 pages, I did not think it dragged too much as the author gave the book a good pace while keeping track of what year it was. However she does tend to skip back and forth within the mentioned year which can get a bit confusing. Every character mentioned is important in one life or another which was also a bit confusing but not impossible. As I said, Atkinson's strength is character development but for me the overall story just didn't reach its potential.