I do enjoy Kate Atkinson's books and this was no exception but I only gave it 3.5 *.
Why? Because of a huge cop-out at the end. The characters and the settings are wonderful but (SPOILER ALERT) a storyline that begins quite early on is left to flail about before flopping finally into one of those 'it was just a dream' endings.
It felt as though Ms Atkinson had a great idea for this particular character and set the scene nicely leaving us a with a mystery but then either she got bored, had to meet a deadline, or couldn't think how to work it out, so she just gave up and doesn't explain it at all. It just all turns out alright in the end. Which was good for the character but not for the reader. At least not this reader.
As the novel has nearly two thousand reviews on Amazon and is given 4.5* maybe I'm being too picky.
4 comments:
Sometimes tropes work well, sometimes they don't.
Thank you for your review. I will avoid that book.
Hmm. Will I or will I not read this? Probably, though I find cop-out endings unforgiveable. Note my long-held grudge against John Grisham because of what I felt was a cop-out ending to one of his books and haven't read another since - too many other good reads out there. ;-)
It's brilliant, not to be read literally. The ending is a complete sendup of midlist writing, after the reader, out of breath from the picaresque whirl she's just dealt with, needs a helping hand. No, of course they didn't live happily ever after, the writer says, haven't you been paying attention, she asks! But here, if you want it, some ends tied up, but don't fall for it, she says.
Atkinson simply knows what she's doing. Many echoes of tropes in Thackeray, Richardson, Trollope, Sharp, Sparks, Winspear. And to her own earlier works and characters. It's one of those let it flow over you works, issues of identity, police and criminals doing each others' jobs, sexual orientation across the spectrum including the asexual.
Anyway, I was engrossed. As you see! It's like being inside a kaleidoscope being shaken around just as you managed to focus.
My 2c.
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