Reviews
PRAISE FOR A GOD IN RUINS: "Atkinson isn't just telling a story: she's deconstructing, taking apart the notion of how we believe stories are told. Using narrative tricks that range from the subtlest sleight of hand to direct address, she makes us feel the power of storytelling not as an intellectual conceit, but as a punch in the gut."-- Publishers Weekly, "If you loved Atkinson's Life After Life, you're in luck. If you're one of the, say, five people who didn't read it: You're still in luck--Atkinson is a master at the top of her game. A quiet, moving portrait of a guy navigating life's small pleasures and painful failures."-- Marie Claire, "Ms. Atkinson rises beautifully to the challenge of dramatizing the raids, capturing the virtually suicidal nature of these operations in muscular, unsentimental prose." -- Sam Sacks , The Wall Street Journal, "Magnificent...Atkinson fluidly executes these chronological loop-de-loops, leaving a reader to marvel at that most banal of epiphanies--how fast life goes by." -- Maureen Corrigan , NPR's "Fresh Air", "Ms. Atkinson's thrumming imagination runs on premium prose, a perfect vehicle for conveying characters to new futures."-- Susan Bale , The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "Studded with poetry and song, Atkinson's combination of wartime and family drama evokes a lost era, while also showing how World War II helped bring that time to a close. Teddy witnesses the breakdown of class prejudice through camaraderie, the slide from prudishness to promiscuity, and the destruction of the flower-filled meadows he knew in his youth to make way for crops to feed a hungry country. Simultaneously, Atkinson illustrates the difficult transition from wartime to peacetime."-- Jaclyn Fulwood , Shelf Awareness, "A sprawling, unapologetically ambitious saga that tells the story of postwar Britain through the microcosm of a single family, and you remember what a big, old-school novel can do."-- Tom Perotta , New York Times Book Review, "A staggeringly gorgeous book, offering through the story of one small, good, imperfect life, the chance to grieve and cherish so many more."-- Ellis Avery , Boston Globe, " A God in Ruins is billed as a companion book to Life After Life . Really though, it stands alone in achievement. It's fiction at it's best."-- Sherryl Connelly , The New York Daily News, "A novel that takes its place in the line of powerful works about young men and war, stretching from Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage to Kevin Powers's The Yellow Birds and Ben Fountain's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk ."-- Maureen Corrigan , The Washington Post, "A staggeringly gorgeous book, offering through the story of one small, good, imperfect life, the chance to grieve and cherish so many more." -- Ellis Avery , Boston Globe, "Gorgeous, thought-provoking...once again, Atkinson explores the concept of paths not taken versus those that are. Her hero's journey has its trials...but also joys and deep love. Quiet, humble Teddy is easy to root for. At the end of this tender story (a weeper, by the way), you won't want to let him go."-- Good Housekeeping, "...more subtly postmodern, shifting between past, present, and future in ways both subversive and perfectly organic." -- Boris Kachka , New York Magazine, "Nothing short of a masterpiece. Elegantly structured and beautifully told, it recounts the story of Teddy Todd, the brother of the protagonist of Atkinson's 2013 novel, Life After Life , in his attempt to live a 'good, quiet life' in the 20th century. Characteristically perceptive and poignant, like its predecessor it also gives a vivid and often thrilling account of life during the second world war--seen this time from the air rather than the streets of London." -- Paula Hawkins , Author of The Girl on the Train, "Ms. Atkinson's thrumming imagination runs on premium prose, a perfect vehicle for conveying characters to new futures."-- Susan Bal_e , The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "a staggeringly gorgeous book, offering through the story of one small, good, imperfect life, the chance to grieve and cherish so many more."-- Ellis Avery , Boston Globe, "...more subtly postmodern, shifting between past, present, and future in ways both subversive and perfectly organic."-- Boris Kachka , New York Magazine, "She also continues to write, as she did in Life after Life , about the savagery of war in clarion prose that is graphic in detail and possessed of a singular melancholy. And whether it is the stoic Teddy, his practical wife, his unbelievably selfish daughter, or his neglected grandchildren, every one of Atkinson's characters will, at one moment or another, break readers' hearts."-- Booklist, "Atkinson's strong and evocative turn of phrase, which is both beautiful and strangely conversational, pull readers in, with solid plotting and deep affection for her characters keeping them reading...Teddy Todd survived the war and then he died and, in between, he lived, and every moment is wonderful, even if it was never meant to be."-- Kate Erbland , Bustle, "This is that age-old story--man's fall from grace, and his endless struggle to regain it--made wonderfully, achingly new."-- Tricia Springstubb , The Cleveland Plain Dealer, "Only as the book unfolds is each character more fully revealed. Ms. Atkinson's artistry in making this happen is marvelously delicate and varied."-- Janet Maslin , New York Times, "I've mostly recovered from the shock of it, but I advise you to never play poker with Atkinson for real money."-- Jim Higgins , The Sunday Journal Sentinel, "Atkinson's genre-bending novels have garnered critical praise, but nothing on the order of a Rushdie, or even an Ian McEwan. A God in Ruins should change that."-- Amy Gentry , The Chicago Tribune, "will leave you turning back the pages, wanting to live it again, mixing up past and present in a delightful bold manner." -- Natalie Serber , The Sunday Oregonian, " A God in Ruins bills itself as a companion piece to Life After Life , rather than a sequel. In trying this, Atkinson joins some of the most innovative and impressive authors on both sides of the pond, including Hilary Mantel, Marilynne Robinson, and Jane Smiley, who are busy constructing high-brow trilogies and ambitious spinoffs of their own. Atkinson more than lives up to the challenge and proves herself worthy of her company."-- Ester Bloom , BarnesandNoble.com, "Ms. Atkinson's thrumming imagination runs on premium prose, a perfect vehicle for conveying characters to new futures."-- Susan Balée , The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "Kate Atkinson's intelligence and understanding of humanity informs every page...The reader will at times need to rest the book for a few moments to recover before plunging ahead. It might help, too, to have a box of tissues handy."-- Jonathan Rickard , New York Journal of Books, A "rich and enthralling read...Atkinson does a skillful job of interweaving history and fiction. Even more impressively, she combines a brilliantly rendered traditional narrative and warmly believable characters with a postmodern sense of the nature of fiction, the story aware of itself as story."-- Colette Bancroft , The Tampa Bay Times, "Gorgeous, thought-provoking...once again, Atkinson explores the concept of paths not taken versus those that are. Her hero's journey has its trials...but also joys and deep love. Quiet, humble Teddy is easy to root for. At the end of this tender story (a weeper, by the way), you won't want to let him go." -- Good Housekeeping, "Ms. Atkinson's thrumming imagination runs on premium prose, a perfect vehicle for conveying characters to new futures." -- Susan Balée , The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "Ms. Atkinson rises beautifully to the challenge of dramatizing the raids, capturing the virtually suicidal nature of these operations in muscular, unsentimental prose."-- Sam Sacks , The Wall Street Journal, "Atkinson writes the way LeBron dunks or Stephen Hawking theorizes; she can't help but be brilliant." -- Leah Greenblatt , Entertainment Weekly, "A hugely impressive and immensely moving novel. Somehow it feels effortless, although clearly that is not the case...Fiction of the very best kind." -- Erica Wagner , New Statesman, "This follow up [to Life After Life ] tracks Ursula's brother, Teddy, a favorite son who flies an RAF bomber during the Second World War and remains kind, thoughtful, and patient through a life of quiet sadness...Teddy, unlike his sister, lives only one life, but Atkinson's deft handling of time, as she jumps from boyhood to old age and back, is impressive."-- The New Yorker, "As finely crafted as Life After Life ...Having spun one great novel out of second, third and 50th chances, she's spun another out of the fact that in reality, we get only one."-- Lev Grossman , Time, "A grown-up, elegant fairy tale...a humane vision of people in all their complicated splendor."-- Kirkus, "A sprawling, unapologetically ambitious saga that tells the story of postwar Britain through the microcosm of a single family, and you remember what a big, old-school novel can do." -- Tom Perotta , New York Times Book Review, "Only as the book unfolds is each character more fully revealed. Ms. Atkinson's artistry in making this happen is marvelously delicate and varied." -- Janet Maslin , New York Times, "Reading A GOD IN RUINS feels like encountering a series of perfect scenes from the past half century, jumbled up and spiced with wit and drama. By the end, the point the novel makes through its shuffled deck structure becomes clear, and it's a moving one."-- Jenny Shank , The Dallas Morning News, "There is a bit of trickery here, as it turns out, as philosophical as it is novelistic, but the book's pleasures--and it's accomplishments--are ultimately more remarkable that the twist the story finally takes."-- Ellen Akins , The Minneapolis Star Tribune, " A God in Ruins is another triumph for Kate Atkinson... A God in Ruins has a compelling narrative, a myriad of unforgettable scenes, and a bit of the old Atkinson playful craftiness at the very end, a mischievous Ian McEwan-like investigation into the curious ways of fiction writers. Altogether dazzling, A God in Ruins is my pick for the best (so far) novel of 2015." -- Linda Wolfe , Fab Over Fifty, "A sprawling, epic novel... A God in Ruins expresses the ways lives can be seen close up, in seemingly unconnected individual moments, or from a distance, as a series of through-lines."-- Tasha Robinson , NPR.org, "A novel so sublime I would nominate it to represent all books in the Art Olympics. The afterword deserves a literary prize all to itself. It is, as claimed on the sumptuous proof, even better than Life After Life ."-- The Bookseller, " A God in Ruins is Kate Atkinson's brilliant follow-up to Life After Life ...This time, Atkinson has written what looks like a big, old-fashioned book, with just enough high-concept risks to make readers start riffling back through the pages as soon as they've done...readers...are never quite in the same condition when they finish a book. When it comes to a novel like A God in Ruins , that change will always be for the better." -- Yvonne Zipp , The Christian Science Monitor
