Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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47 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Amazing book, 13 Jun 2004
By A Customer
Human Croquet is about a girl, Isobel Fairfax, who lives with her father who left her when she was eight(?) and then came back, seven years later, Vinny, who's her emotionless and grumpy aunt, her stepmother, Debbie, who's nearly the same age as her, and her alien-obsessed brother. Her mother disappeared little before her father left her and her brother.
Human Croquet is a wonderfully bizarre book, full of twists and fascinating, deep characters. It is confusing in a good way, and when I finished it, I just felt like reading it again to notice every single little detail that, if I'd been more clever, would've maybe given the ending away.
I'll have to start looking for Kate Atkinson's other books
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14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An extraordinary book - truly magical, 18 Sep 2000
I could hardly bear to put this book down. I don't usually like fantasy and reality intertwined in such a way that it is difficult to tell truth from fiction. But every page of this book was a delight. Atkinson's use of language and her characterisation are superb. I felt that she was teasing the reader with the story, which winds in and out of past and present, but such a playful teasing that I felt drawn right in. Definitely a book that I shall re-read.
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24 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An usual style for a very british novel, 14 Sep 2003
Its hard to describe what this book is about other than a chunk of the life of an individual at a particular place in time. The herione of our tale is a teenage girl filled with self-doubt about herself and her looks with a strange bag of misfit friends, a brother who is obsessed with aliens and bizarre events and who lusts after the best looking boy in town. Her rather strange world is described in very simple language like an old fashioned fairy tale so we hear about her aunt vinny and her cats, the creepy lodger and her parents. The main thread of the book is how the disappearance of her mother haunts both herself and her brother and how they believe this has landed them in the frankly surrealist world they live in. There are also other characters in the pot, the great forest which once dominated the landscape of england and some of the major characters that lead to the creation of the town.Throughout the book we hear the voice of the girl describing the events around her with an innocent eye, however, these chapters are interspersed with flashbacks during which we discover over time the truth behind all the characters past and present. Her father the ex-war hero, her mother who she sees as a beautiful elusive figure, her step-mother, her grandmother and so on. In doing so we receive a very different view which is far from innocent on the desires and weaknesses of the characters and a world a lot darker, more real and much more dirty than hers. Some of the book is very funny, and the characterisations told in simple language very interesting but if you're looking for humour be aware that this is a typical english thing, a black comedy with some sad truths. It is a very different book, in its style and approach and certainly grips you with a desire to know the truth behind all the people you meet and I stayed up late at night reading away. Its probably not everyones cup of tea and I'm not sure I'd want to read lots of this type of writing but its unusual, funny and worth the investment for long plane rides and train rides.
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