Books, Burds & Booze

The next meeting will be held at Phyl Wright's house on 19th August 2016.

The chosen book is A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson. 

Buy the book from Amazon by clicking here.

It can also be found in Waterstones by clicking here.

Genre

Crime, thrillers

Rating of this book will be on a score out of ten.  This will be made up of points 1-3 for the plot, 1-3 for the characterisation and 1-4 for the readability factor.   The consensus reached by the Books, Burds and Booze book group will be published after the meeting to discuss it.

Reason for choosing this book - Ever since I read Behind The Scenes at the Museum by her in 1995, I have been a fan of Kate Atkinson's work.  I have enjoyed all of her novels to a greater of lesser degree,  especially her Jackson Brodie ones and Life after Life. I am interested to see what I and others in the Bookclub make of her latest offering. (P. Wright)

If anyone is interested in Kate Atkinson's life or details of her published novels, the Wikipedia information can be viewed by clicking here.



August 29th meeting - Review of Book

The meeting on the 19th August was well attended and a lively discussion (fuelled by fizz, wine, and some truly delicious cosmopolitans courtesy of Jax), took place on the merits or otherwise of the book.

The plot scored on average 2 out of 3 which, for a character based book, was surprising.

Characterisation scored 3 on average out of 3.

Readability came in at 3 out of 4 with most people agreeing that it was quite a difficult book to get into and most felt that it would have been easy to give up on it, until about a third of the way through when the book seemed to come alive for us. One person hadn't read the book, another hadn't finished it and admitted they might not and a third did not like anything about it. The others however who had read it, were in agreement that it was very cleverly conceived and executed.

Comments included :

"Took a while to get into it, but loved the reveal of each character and the way each scene was drafted so visually."

"Enjoying changes of time line and seeing story from different characters. "

"Reading the book...still! Enjoying the characters and stories - looking forward to surprise ending."

"Makes me want to read Ursula's story, 'Life after Life.' Viola seemed vile, but in the end seemed quite frantic and just unable to cope. Was surprised by ending."

"Found it boring. Didn't like the characters, found it wandered off needlessly with quotes which had no meaning. Felt the ending was as clever as a school kids' 'and then I woke up...' Characters stereotypical and flat - didn't feel I could identify with any of them. Over elaborate vocabulary."

"Fell in love with this book, about a third of the way through and was awe struck by the way the author played about in a very unique way with the timeline. Didn't just relate to, but felt the characters' emotions. Loved it and it made me want to write like this."

Anyone from the club who has now finished the book and wants to write a short review can do so by using the comments section at the bottom of this page.