A God in Ruins

Terrible. How this book ended up on so many best-of-2015 lists I cannot fathom. Typically, a book set in England from just before WWII through the recent past would be right up my alley (an English Gran and Grampas who fought in WWII help). I've also enjoyed Atkinson's Jackson Brodie series, but should have known not to bother with “A God in Ruins” given that “Life After Life” just fell flat for me.

It is one thing to skip about in a character's or set of characters' chronologies. It is entirely another to do so because you don't have much of a story to tell and because you aren't able to fully flesh out your characters, even when you take over 400 pages not to do so. It is even another to mash together dialogue so that you don't know who is speaking (because it's all so boring that it doesn't matter). Yet, people just ate this book up. Bah! I'm glad I got it from the library.