Book Reviews of Behind the Scenes at the Museum

Memorable. Surprises abound. Characters to really care about, to love, and to be appalled by! A true picture of growing up in the 50s, with an abundance of detailed domestic life. Certain passages stay with the reader, like: "I have been to the world's end and back and now I know what I would put in my bottom drawer. I would put my sisters." The bottom drawer, when you read the book, stands for a place for needful things.

A terrific book by hot British writer Kate Atkinson, author of "Case Histories." This one was a Whitbread Book of the Year, and on the NY Times "Notable Books of the Year" list.
Alternating between a first person account of the young life of Ruby Lennox, and a series of chapter-long 'footnotes' that give insight into the backstory of Ruby's extended family, the book is darkly comic, sometimes tragic, wise, and very original.

A great look at a complex family. This is not your typical dysfunctional family story. This is a perfect book group discussion type book.

Totally engrossing story of the life of a girl that starts from the moment she is conceived. I found that once I started reading it, I could not lay it down until it was finished.

What a great book to read as you laze about in bed, assuming you don't mind being depressed. Craptastic.

Both comedy and tragedy. Good book

The unique perspective of this book draws you in; you almost instantly feel sorry for its narrator and immediately grasp how dysfunctional her family life will be. The book has some dark humor and is, for the most part, a dark book. It has some intense surprises in it (that I really didn't see coming) and at the end, the book is rather uplifting. It follows much more than the narrators sad life, it really follows the lives of about three generations of women in her family. Since it encompassses such a wide time-span, it really reads like historical fiction at times, with female perspectives on two World Wars, life in the 50's, etc. A fascinating read focused on the relationship between mothers and their kids, but also a multi-generational perspective on women's search for acceptance and happiness.

Started out with a bang (no pun intended) and pulled me in with Ruby's (the narrator) account of her time in utero. Atkinson writes in breezy fashion with loads of dark humor mostly aimed at Ruby's mother, Bunty, who thoroughly deserves the digs.

This story about four generations of women living in various states of familial dysfunction and misery is not written in linear fashion so one can feel disoriented at each new chapter or footnote. "Where are we now? Back in 1919? Oh, is it 1958 again? Oh, okay...Who is Alice? Who's Jack, again?"

While I liked the characters and felt each of the stories were worth following to their conclusion, it did drag on needlessly in several places and again, the jumping around in time served no purpose.

Also, Atkinson is not good at the fine art of foreshadowing. She sort of hits you with it and that takes the fun out of predicting. In the end though, you can figure out what's going to happen with one or two weird and random suprises tossed in for good measure.

My favorite character was Rags the dog.

Wonderful! Delicious! Satisfying!

I loved the main character Ruby. She was both funny and heartbreaking.

This was one of the best books I read last year! Absolutely amazing writing.

I loved this book.

This is a tough review to write! I loved the words, the ideas, the narration by the character who has not yet been born when the story begins. However, I found the arrangement of stories, back and forth between two generations, to be distracting and something that just did not contribute to the quality of the story. And, much to my dismay (and embarrassment), I have NO idea what the title means. I'm sure I missed some critical point along the way in my effort to stumble through and keep up with the separate stories, but I am clueless!

I personally found it boring and could not get into it.

The organization of the chapters - a chapter in the present followed by a footnote chapter a generation or two in the past - made it hard to remember who some of the characters were (siblings of the mother? the grandmother?) But it's worth sticking through to figure it out.

Excellent book from a unique point of view. I have used this book in my Lit classes and the students LOVE it. One of my favorites.

I started and stopped this book a few times. It was an interesting way to write it - the writer writes as if she has conscious thought from the time of conception...but I just couldn't get into it...

i like the way atkinson writes. this is a good story.

From Amazon.com -
"I exist!" exclaims Ruby Lennox upon her conception in 1951, setting the tone for this humorous and poignant first novel in which Ruby at once celebrates and mercilessly skewers her middle-class English family. Peppered with tales of flawed family traits passed on from previous generations, Ruby's narrative examines the lives in her disjointed clan, which revolve around the family pet shop. But beneath the antics of her philandering father, her intensely irritable mother, her overly emotional sisters, and a gaggle of eccentric relatives are darker secrets--including an odd "feeling of something long forgotten"--that will haunt Ruby for the rest of her life. Kate Atkinson earned a Whitbread Prize in 1995 for this fine first effort.

I read this with my book group. I hated it. Pointless, humorless, and totally irrelevant. (And I'm not that picky about books I enjoy!) But others absolutely loved it.

Very random book, but interesting...

This book has received many rave reviews but I found it difficult to get into. It featured so many characters and swings back in forth in time that I couldn't keep them all straight.

Told from the viewpoint of Ruby who lets the reader in on her relatives (and boy, does she have a ton) most intimate secrets. It's interesting but the continued time flips and the huge cast of characters keeps jolting me out of the story.

I finished but but it remained too confusing and uninvolving a read for me to rate any higher than a 3. It just seemed to go on and on with minor peaks and valleys and lots of death and tragedy but no huge climax or surprises. None that were very surprising or shocking to me at least. Only sad and dreary.

This book was hard going, but worth it. Although, many reviews talk about it being darkly comic, I didn't find anything about it funny. It's a dense journey in the generations of a family and not a happy family.
I'm glad I read it, but it's not light.