Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Warning: I loved Kate Atkinson's new novel, "A God in Ruins", so much that I feel compelled to gush about it! I was thoroughly absorbed by this companion piece to Atkinson's best selling, "Life After Life". This novel does not bounce back and forth between parallel universes the way "LAL" did; it tells the story of Ursula's beloved brother Teddy. Here is the thing, the chapter early on, called "The Children of Adam", is 27 pages of pure proof positive that Atkinson is a writer of the highest caliber. In this chapter, a character study of Teddy's daughter Viola, who in 1980 has two small children and is living with an "artist" on a commune in Britain, Atkinson captures Viola and her generation, with such wit, such exquisite satire, such spot-on observation, that when I finished the chapter I went back and read it again to savor every perfect word. And even though Atkinson does skewer Viola, she still managed to make me feel for her. I wanted to give her a hug in the end. [There is a lot more of Viola as the story goes on, and I didn't always want to hug her.] The price of this novel is worth it for those 27 pages of sublime writing alone! The readers who didn't like the "Groundhog Day" aspect to "LAL" will appreciate the absence of that device. Instead the novel bounces around inside of Teddy's life, often revealing glimpses of the future - a device I loved and that does not in any way lessen the suspense; it's truly another testament to Atkinson's writing talent, that even though I KNEW something was going to happen from the beginning...when I actually read the details I burst into tears on the stationary bike at my gym. The sections of the novel that describe Teddy's hair-raising experiences as an RAF pilot in WWII are absolutely cinema-graphic! I can vividly imagine these scenes, along with Ursula's experiences during the Blitz from "LAL" being made into a terrific WWII film. Atkinson's skill at creating characters that both amuse and touch the reader simply awes me. When I finished. I cried. But mostly I rejoiced in this wonderful reading experience. This novel is as much about fiction and creating lives as it is one of Teddy's stories. For doesn't an author create the lives of his/her characters - changing them at will - manipulating the outcomes as much as fate does our own? In one sense this is Atkinson writing lives-after-lives for her characters - one of whom (Izzy) ALSO WRITES BOOKS about a character borrowed from her nephew, Teddy. It is spirals of stories within stories. A final selfish request: please Ms. Atkinson, write us another about Bertie! I didn't get enough of her warm heart wrapped up and disguised in her remarkable sardonic wit. If I could give 100 stars, I would.