Again, this has me torn between praise and criticism.

You can’t fault Kate Atkinson’s ability to reveal a story in brilliant detail, the opening chapter which deals with a pretty brutal attack highlights this and is in fairly stark contrast with the vast majority of the rest of the book.

While I actually really enjoyed the novel, and found myself thinking “just one more chapter” far too late at night on more than one occassion, I couldn’t help but feel a little underwhelmed when I’d finished.  The narrative tends to ramble on a bit too much with Atkinson going to great lengths to describe not very much.  In fact at the end I found myself wondering how this story could have possibly been stretched out to a book of this size, as in all fairness not a lot happens!

I did enjoy it though, which is the really strange thing.  As I said at the start, there’s no denying that Atikinson is a very good writer who can paint a vivid picture which really draws you in, it’s just that in this case the picture doesn’t reveal much.

Perhaps a case of a deadline looming and nothing better to put out?  I don’t know, but if you have a spare wee while and can pick this up cheap then you could do a lot worse but if it’s an enthralling, exciting and fulfilling story which you seek then you may be better heading elsewhere I’m afraid.