I love a surprise plot twist, there is nothing better than an author revealing something and then all the breadcrumbs come rushing back to you. The actual plot pf the story is really good, and if the filler had been cut out it would have made an incredible novella that would have had me on the edge of my seat, as it was the build-up never resulted in an appropriate pay off at the opportune moments. To be honest, a lot of the characters became interchangeable and got lost which was a shame. Most of the characters, whilst able to deliver some wonderful lines and witty (British) dialog, were lacking completeness and as such I never really developed any feeling for any of the characters. Personally, I didn’t connect with any of the characters and did not find Juliet to be someone that I enjoyed reading about. However, there was a lack of a real spark within the book, and I cannot be certain if it was the authors writing that transported me to WW2 London or if it was due to the fact that I have an extensive knowledge of the city and the era.

The writing is undeniable beautiful, the author manages to capture a quintessentially British feel (although I have to say, why does the author believe that all British people are unattractive! Normally the problem with the physical descriptions of characters is that they are all too beautiful sounding with only a tiny flaw, Atkinson manages to do the opposite by having practically every character be unattractive, I don’t know if I should take offense!) and managed to transport me to WW2 era London. Yet, the positive bits were really good! Hence this is a very conflicted review. Mostly, this was down to the pacing of the book, it felt like events were crammed into a couple of pages and then you would have to wade through double the number of pages of filler that were just not progressing the story or developing the characters. I have to admit that it was an unusual reading experience because I seemed to be constantly swinging between finding it fascinating and really enjoying reading it, to one chapter later debating DNFing because it had lost my interest again. “… a Bedford bus pulled up in front of Juliet…The driver opened the door and shouted over to her, ‘MI5, love? Hop in.’ So much for secrecy, she thought.”Įven though this book has a lot of great reviews and is from an award winning author, I probably still wouldn’t have picked it up if it hadn’t been our book club read for the month.

Transcription by kate atkinson review