Normal Rules Don't Apply

 

Normal Rules Don't Apply - Kate Atkinson

Sooooo many things I want to say about this book, and fortunately all of them are good. I’ve read every book by Kate Atkinson and reviewed every one of them as well.  Although THIS review that you’re reading may be the first one by me you’ve read, I nevertheless feel obligated not to repeat myself concerning this particular author.  Let’s just say that she’s my favorite (and I read a LOT).  I’ll also concede that her books aren’t for everyone. They can be quite quirky.  And this book might possibly be the quirkiest of the lot.

First, this is actually a collection of short stories.  She’s done this once before with “Not the End of the World” but I honestly found that book to be a tad TOO quirky. After completing that one I contemplated whether she was on acid when she wrote it.  This one, however, isn’t quite as bizarre.  It’s bizarre all right. Or is that “quirky”?  I loved this book’s quirkiness though, and I have to rate it as one of her best.  Well, when I say “best”, I mean that in a quirky way.  It really is hard to review such a quirky author and her quirky writing style. I’m trying here, but it’s hard.

The problem with quirky short stories is that they end too soon, and whereas full novels by her are also quirky, after a couple hundred pages or so, you can feel a bit more comfortable amidst the quirkiness since a very good story has time to develop that the reader can assimilate.  Short stories that are quirky tend to be too jarring.  You never really have time to “settle” into a story. What makes these short stories mostly palatable, though, is they’re all somewhat related.  I think.  We have main characters in one story make “cameos” in others.  We have stories about bizarre atmospheric abnormalities that seem out of place in an organized universe that are referenced in other stories.  We have “fairy tales” that suddenly become real (and they manage to appear in other stories as well), and I’m willing to bet that if I were to read this collection again (I may, one day) I could find even more little, subtle connections.

I guess you can say that the title of this collection of stories is perfect for the said subject matter.  Although, the previous title of her collections, “Not the End of the World” just might be equally as fitting.  I’ll leave that tidbit to the imagination.

This would be an incredibly fun book to DISCUSS over coffee and crumpets with other diehards who have read this thing as well.  This is really the point of a “book club”, as opposed to some guy just blogging his reviews of the books he’s read (cough-cough).  So, IF, dear reader, you’re looking for a good book club book, this one might be good.  Again, though, you need to make sure the members of your club are all quirky, otherwise you’ll lose some bookworm friends mightily fast.  I would almost make it a requirement, though, to read these stories twice.   The book, fortunately, didn’t seem too large (I read on an e-reader, so don’t really know).  I did finish the whole thing within a 24-hour period. If that isn’t a sign of a great book, I’m not sure what is.  Quirky though.