Isobel Fairfax is 16 years old, living in the decaying family home with her older brother Charles, crazed great-aunt Vinny and their father Gordon. Isobel’s mother ran off with another man years ago, and there is an absence in the middle of her life and that of her brother, an emptiness never to be filled - certainly not by Gordon’s new wife Debbie, who appears to believe that each person in her life is being inexplicably replaced with a robot. And Isobel is beginning to have a bit of trouble with time itself, never quite knowing what year it is or where she is located in the history of the world…. This is Kate Atkinson’s second novel, one that received not-great reviews at the time of its release, no doubt largely because it followed on her brilliant debut, “Behind the Scenes at the Museum.” But in fact, “Human Croquet” describes many of the themes that recur in her work, including time travel, dysfunctional families and unreliable narrators; one is never quite sure what to make of Isobel and how to react to what she says is happening in her life. I found the writing to be quite as lyrical as anything of Atkinson’s that I have read, and am very pleased to have stumbled upon this book; recommended! ( )

I wish I had read this before I read Life after Life and A god in ruins, because both of those are much better time travel novels. This one is a bit of a muddle. The protagonist, Isobel, lives a life of abject misery. Her beloved mother is gone, replaced by a hapless stepmother who is a very pale imitation of the luminous creature from whom Isobel was born. Her handsome war-hero father is whiling away his time in their mouldering manor house (does he even have a job, having squandered his existence as a marginally successful village grocer by disappearing for some years?) And suddenly as she approaches the age of 16, Isobel begins dipping into pockets of time. At first these sojourns seem random, but then they seem to gel into something significant, preventing awful outcomes and precipitating others. The misery seems inescapable, and then she just kind of drifts into a dreamlike normality, a future that forgets all that has gone before but simply allows a kind of wispy happiness. Perhaps it is all a supernatural metaphor for life, but if so I felt like I missed it. Time is infinitely interesting because it is ultimately mysterious and unknowable, but Isobel never seems to really appreciate her gift, or the gift never manifests itself as something useful or enlightening to her. It’s weirdly unsettling. ( )

Mixed bag for me. Exotic Eliza meets pilot hero Gordon in a bombed out house in London. He is bewitched and quickly marries her. Her back story emerges slowly through the book, which is narrated by her daughter Isobel. At times confusing as we go between the present and the past. Twists and turns keep things interesting.
I want to read more of her work. ( )

ove Kate Atkinson books. This was her second novel after [b:Behind the Scenes at the Museum|28940|Behind the Scenes at the Museum|Kate Atkinson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1436172919l/28940._SX50_.jpg|29415] (which I loved).

I read somewhere that looking at an author's earlier book through the lens of their later books gives an interesting insight. The earlier books look like the trial runs on the themes that interest them, and that is clearly the case here.

This isn't Atkinson's best work, but her recurring themes are clearly coming to life here: dark fairy tales with tragic endings, multiple recurring and surreal timelines, the idea that we may have multiple chances and still get it wrong time after time, characters who are utterly flawed until we gain sympathy through an alternate point of view.

But she does a much better job pulling all these strings together in [b:Life After Life|15790842|Life After Life (Todd Family, #1)|Kate Atkinson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1358173808l/15790842._SY75_.jpg|21443207] and [b:A God in Ruins|3722183|A God in Ruins (Todd Family, #2)|Kate Atkinson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1451442002l/3722183._SY75_.jpg|42652219].

This book was well written - and I felt compelled to keep reading just to see how she brought the crazy story lines to a close. She did a good job bringing closure except for I didn't like how the craziest parts of the book were explained as a dream during a coma. I liked the author's later books that just went for all-out magical realism. ( )

Isobel vive en un pequeño pueblo del norte de Inglaterra, en la mansión familiar. Tiene dieciséis años. Conviven con ella su hermano mayor, Charles, de aspecto singular y de extrañas creencias, su padre, Gordon, que desapareció cuando los hermanos eran niños y que regresó siete años más tarde como si nada hubiera pasado, la tía Vinni, siempre irritada, irritable e irritante, su madrastra, Debbie, que comparte su única neurona con un caniche, y el lascivo huésped, el señor Arroce, que teme que cualquier día despertará transformado en un gigantesco insecto.