A God in Ruins
A God in Ruins is a sort of companion piece to Kate Atkinson's Life After Life. In Life, Ursula Todd's life kept rebooting and spooling out in difference ways. In Ruins, the star is Ursula's beloved brother Teddy, an all-around good guy and heroic bomber pilot during the war.
This one took me a while to get into. It almost went back to the library unfinished, but I persevered and it got better as it went along. Part of the problem is that Teddy's daughter, Viola, is SO unlikeable and shrill. And a lot of the book is devoted to her story. I enjoyed the parts about Teddy more. He would probably say his time as a bomber pilot was the pinnacle of his life. But I would say his relationship with his grandchildren--and providing them with a safe harbor from their negative-influence mother and self-absorbed, mentally ill father--was equally important.
Ursula lived so many different lives in the first book that I wondered which one she would be living in Teddy's story but Atkinson kept it kind of vague. Ursula would just pop up periodically to be loving and supportive then head back to whatever life she was living.
Many of the reviews touted this as a masterpiece. I don't know that I'd agree with that. (I definitely liked Life After Life better.) But I will say that the scenes of Teddy as a bomber pilot are beautifully written. Atkinson really does bring that claustrophic, nerve-wracking, terrifying experience to life.
This one took me a while to get into. It almost went back to the library unfinished, but I persevered and it got better as it went along. Part of the problem is that Teddy's daughter, Viola, is SO unlikeable and shrill. And a lot of the book is devoted to her story. I enjoyed the parts about Teddy more. He would probably say his time as a bomber pilot was the pinnacle of his life. But I would say his relationship with his grandchildren--and providing them with a safe harbor from their negative-influence mother and self-absorbed, mentally ill father--was equally important.
Ursula lived so many different lives in the first book that I wondered which one she would be living in Teddy's story but Atkinson kept it kind of vague. Ursula would just pop up periodically to be loving and supportive then head back to whatever life she was living.
Many of the reviews touted this as a masterpiece. I don't know that I'd agree with that. (I definitely liked Life After Life better.) But I will say that the scenes of Teddy as a bomber pilot are beautifully written. Atkinson really does bring that claustrophic, nerve-wracking, terrifying experience to life.
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