Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good news, but..., 16 Mar 2009
I enjoy Kate Atkinson's books. She is a quirky, honest writer. I enjoy her outlook on life and the faint rebelliousness of her characters. However, I nearly gave up on this one after 100 pages and only awarded it 4 stars because, ultimately, it hooked me, drew me in and had me turning the pages. But despite that it read like a draft copy, not a completed version. Parts of the story were unclear and her sometimes rambling style went unchecked, even when it interfered with narrative and plot - too many digressions.
I don't know if this was the fault of Kate Atkinson or the publishers. Perhaps she had to rush for a deadline, but in that case it required serious editing, which was completely lacking here - at one point the same sentence is repeated within the same paragraph! I am loathe to blame Atkinson, who I believe is a serious and seriously talented writer, but with some best sellers editing seems to be a thing of the past. The publishers know that a popular name and brand will sell, so they just rush it out regardless.
I am also disappointed with the critics, who have given this almost unanimous praise. Didn't they notice the inconsistencies and lack of editing? Did they even read it? This is a carelessly written book and the buying public have a right to know that before they part with their cash. It seems that with popular books (and films) many critics just go with the flow and praise on reputation rather than giving an honest review. There are very, very few critics who I trust now, which is a sad state of affairs. Book reviewing seems very much like an old pal's act, part of an uncritical, very profitable production line.
Anyway, rant over. I'm sad that a Kate Atkinson book provided such a good example of this malaise because I genuinely admire her writing, but this really was case of a 'not quite finished' book going into print to rave reviews. The book was rescued by sheer talent and a gripping storyline, but that doesn't make it right.
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75 of 85 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A little cluttered, though I'm still a big fan, 27 Aug 2008
I love Kate Atkinson's writing (I don't usually buy books in hardback!) and did enjoy this novel, finishing it in a matter of days.
However, I can't deny that it felt a little cluttered - too many perspectives; too many personal tragedies; too much drama and bloody violence. I felt that an awful lot had been packed in along the way and it began to feel unrealistic and unsubtle.
To my mind, the Needler story was unnecessary; Reggie's personal circumstances went from bad to unlikely; and all the key characters were a little too connected. A bit of coincidence is one thing, but this went too far. Perhaps it was meant to feel 'fateful' but it didn't quite work for me.
When writing from Jackson Brodie's perspective Kate Atkinson seems at her most comfortable, he's a rounded character and totally believable. For me, Reggie was endearing but didn't quite ring true and I am not at all keen on her new pet character, Louise Munroe. Not that it's vital to always like characters in novels, but she's clearly being established as a heroine, perhaps equal to Jackson, but for me she has few redeeming features. I simply don't want to know much more about her.
Given Kate Atkinson's talents as a writer (her colourful prose and characterisation draw the reader in from the very start) I feel she doesn't need to rely so heavily on crime as a genre. She built up her initial tale of the Mason family in a compelling way, only to destroy them a few pages later. It felt like a waste. I remember feeling the same way about Case Histories.
I look forward to her next novel but hope she tones down the crime elements just a little and focuses on her characters and insights into their lives and loves.
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54 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"Coincidence is just an explanation waiting to happen.", 26 Sep 2008
Not a traditional mystery, Kate Atkinson's third Jackson Brodie novel grows instead out of the terrible traumas that children and young people must endure when people they love die violently. So marked are they by their sudden tragedies, that they never really escape their pasts, and spend the rest of their lives wondering "when will there be good news." Five separate plot lines evolve and begin to overlap here, and in each of these plots the main characters are all needy people hiding an inner loneliness from which they would like to escape. In the first plot, Joanna Mason Hunter is a physician living in Edinburgh, the happily married mother of a one-year-old, a woman who appears to have it all, but thirty years ago, she escaped a slashing attack which murdered her mother, sister, and baby brother. Though she seems to have put her past to rest, the murderer of her family is about to be released from jail.
Joanna's "mother's help" is Reggie Chase, a sixteen-year-old fending for herself in a rundown apartment that she shares with her delinquent brother. Reggie adores her job--and Joanna, who has no idea that Reggie's mother has died traumatically over a year ago. Jackson Brodie, a former police detective and a lead character in Case Histories: A Novel and One Good Turn: A Jolly Murder Mystery, is newly married for the third time, estranged from his twelve-year-old daughter from a previous marriage and prohibited from seeing the two-year-old he believes to be his son with his former girlfriend.
While working on a case in England, he takes the wrong train and ends up in Edinburgh, where he is injured in a train crash near the house where babysitter Reggie Chase is staying. Meanwhile, Detective Chief Inspector Louise Monroe, a former girlfriend of Jackson Brodie, has come to Edinburgh to warn Joanna that the killer of her family has been released. In a final subplot, Joanna's husband Neil Hunter is in debt and in trouble with criminals, and Reggie, the babysitter, has found the house empty when she arrived to babysit. She is convinced that Joanna and the baby are missing and probably dead.
Atkinson's narrative is enhanced by her skillful pacing as she introduces new elements and surprises, and she is especially adept at individualizing her characters. Through flashbacks, she compares and contrasts their past and present lives, and the reader comes to "know" them. Connected thematically by their yearning for loving relationships, they are eventually connected through the plot's complications and mysteries. Ironies abound, and mistaken identities create some bizarre and sometimes darkly humorous scenes. Coincidence plays an important role in resolving the novel in dramatic fashion, and though no one will believe that these twists and turns are remotely realistic, they are great fun and completely consistent with the ebullient story-telling that Atkinson has made her signature. Mary Whipple
Behind the Scenes at the Museum
Human Croquet
Emotionally Weird
Not the End of the World
Abandonment
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