Transcription by Kate Atkinson
I'm halfway through Transcription and am not loving it. I am a huge fan of this author and have bought copies of her books (ie, Started Early Took My Dog and Case Histories) as gifts. But this one is taking me forever to slog through.
The story in a nutshell is that World War II is underway. Londoner Juliet is 18 years old and ready for an adventure. When she is offered a chance to work for MI5, she takes it then finds herself as a transcriptionist for an operation that involves an MI5 operative posing as a Gestapo agent to trap British citizens who are Nazi sympathizers. She types out a record of the secret recordings, which is just about as exciting as it sounds. So when they offer her a chance to go undercover in a Nazi-leaning group, she takes it. But her little adventure in spying becomes serious when someone ends up dead, probably because of her. That is where I am, and that murder is the most interesting thing that has happened in 150 pages.
The problems with this book are that 1)the pace is very slow 2)Juliet is not that interesting and 3) there are too many characters floating through and it's hard to keep track of them all. If it picks up, I'll let you know.
Otherwise, read one of Kate Atkinson's other books: Started Early Took My Dog, Life After Life, or When Will There Be Good News? In my humble opinion, they were all much better.
Update: I finally gave up on Transcription and asked my sister how it ended. There were several twists at the end that I certainly didn't see coming in the first half of the book--and one that I guessed.
The story in a nutshell is that World War II is underway. Londoner Juliet is 18 years old and ready for an adventure. When she is offered a chance to work for MI5, she takes it then finds herself as a transcriptionist for an operation that involves an MI5 operative posing as a Gestapo agent to trap British citizens who are Nazi sympathizers. She types out a record of the secret recordings, which is just about as exciting as it sounds. So when they offer her a chance to go undercover in a Nazi-leaning group, she takes it. But her little adventure in spying becomes serious when someone ends up dead, probably because of her. That is where I am, and that murder is the most interesting thing that has happened in 150 pages.
The problems with this book are that 1)the pace is very slow 2)Juliet is not that interesting and 3) there are too many characters floating through and it's hard to keep track of them all. If it picks up, I'll let you know.
Otherwise, read one of Kate Atkinson's other books: Started Early Took My Dog, Life After Life, or When Will There Be Good News? In my humble opinion, they were all much better.
Update: I finally gave up on Transcription and asked my sister how it ended. There were several twists at the end that I certainly didn't see coming in the first half of the book--and one that I guessed.
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