Play Book Tag discussion

Transcription by Kate Atkinson
2 stars

Wow. What a huge disappointment.

Juliet Armstrong is recruited by MI5 to be a transcriptionist, she sits in an apartment armed with a listening device and typewriter to log the conversations between an MI5 double-agent and suspected Nazi sympathizers. Flash forward to 10 years down the road and characters from her past keep crossing her path as she works as a BBC radio show producer.

I don't even know how to put into words my disappointment in this book. It started so un-freaking-believably slow. It was painful. I felt like I was supposed to be questioning what was going on but so little was actually happening that I didn't even have anything to grasp onto to ponder if things were not what they seemed.

Things picked up a little bit at about the 60% mark, but it was really only enough intrigue to prevent me from DNFing it. I can't even really tell you what happened. I mean, I guess we started to fill in some of the gaps of what was happening in 1940 that Juliet wasn't privy to, and we learned the fates of some of the characters, so that was interesting.

But then the end. UGH! THE END! There was this twist that was so far out of left-field that I actually went to a bookstore to flip through a hard copy to see if I had missed like 19 chapters. I hadn't. I hate twists that are not set up properly. That are not hinted at or brilliantly alluded to. That just blindside you and make you instantly become indifferent to a book.

And, I am STILL not even sure what the implications of the "twist" were supposed to be! (view spoiler)[Was Juliet a double agent the whole time? Just that during WWII England and Russia were on the same side (kind of) so they duplicity was overlooked while during the Cold War it wasn't? Did people know during 1940 that she was actually working for the Russians and they were secretly keeping an eye on her too? (hide spoiler)] I NEED ANSWERS, PEOPLE!

Actually, I don't need answers. I refuse to spend more time thinking about this crappy book.

Sorry you didn't like it. I really did. I guess it's a matter of whether you're expecting a mystery where hints are dropped. I treated it as a character study. I thought right away she was a pathological liar and completely capable of what happened at the end (trying not to spoil here).

I wasn’t expecting a mystery, just some sort of indication of where the story was going.

Glad you liked it, but I am borderline angry at how poorly written I found the story.

I am thinking this may be a book of extremes, judging from some of the GR reviews I've read. People either like it a lot or really don't like it at all.

And I really liked her last two books, A God in Ruins and Life After Life.

I think that is what made this one especially hard to take. And I liked the concept! I just thought it was a lazy execution of the plot. Especially when I know that she can write and incredibly complex plot that subtly leads the reader down the story’s path because of Life After Life.

I need to go read some of the other good reviews. Perhaps they will point out something that I did not pick up on...

Damn - what a shame!

Did you read this one, Kate?

Ugh-I just got an email this morning saying that I won this in a GR giveaway.....I suppose I could re-gift to someone🤶on my list

Joanne wrote: "Ugh-I just got an email this morning saying that I won this in a GR giveaway.....I suppose I could re-gift to someone🤶on my list"

Give it a whirl! Joy liked it, and there are certainly other people who did as well. But, I am definitely not alone in my dislike.

I'm torn about this book because of the mixed review. I'll just have to try it and see. Louise Erdrich wrote a blog recommending it. She says that once you read it you'll want to start over. That makes sense. Atkinson and Erdrich both make me want to start their books over so I can figure out how all the pieces fit together.

Jgrace wrote: "I'm torn about this book because of the mixed review. I'll just have to try it and see. Louise Erdrich wrote a blog recommending it. She says that once you read it you'll want to start over. That m..."

Ha! That is actually not a glowing endorsement for me. I want to like Erdrich so much more than I actually do.

Part of this is on me too. I don't want to read a book that only makes sense at the end and then I have to go back and reread it to put it all together. I am not saying that a book has to be obvious and blatantly lay out facts, but if the plot is so obscure that it only makes sense at the end when there is an expositive information dump, then I think that is a sign of poor plot planning.

And Atkinson can plot plan. Life After Life was phenomenal. It wasn't obvious and in-your-face, but at the end the pieces came together without my having to scratch my head and flip back through obscure passages that gave the briefest hint as to what was to come.

Ugh, obviously I am still fired up about how much I didn't like this book...

No I haven’t read it. But I was thinking about it - the situation sounded so appealing.

KateNZ wrote: "No I haven’t read it. But I was thinking about it - the situation sounded so appealing."

I loved the premise! Maybe my review will lower your expectations a bit, resulting in your liking it more than I did.

TOTAL subject change, but have you read Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup? It is a true story and involves a lot of patent stuff and the whole time I keep thinking, "I am a lowly law student and I can think of like half a dozen laws this woman is breaking at any given moment." lol

I haven’t read ‘Bad Blood’ yet but I saw you were tackling it - it’s definitely in the pipeline though as so much of my work (privacy) interacts with tech. Patents themselves aren’t my thing - it’s such a specialised area to do it right - but the area is fascinating

There is definitely way more than patent law! I feel like you could name a legal field and there was probably something Holmes violated.

I like the patent stuff, so that just jumps out at me. And I just read a part that was fairly patent heavy.

I look forward to chatting about it when you get to it!

I think I need to read it to see which side of the fence I’ll fall.