Human Croquet (Kate Atkinson)**

There’s nothing wrong with books about time travel. It can be really compelling. But there has got to be a point to it. For one thing, books with a point are a lot more satisfactory than those that are vague, meandering and often incomprehensible. For another, the fact that characters can travel through time is not enough, on its own, to make a book exciting. It’s hardly a new idea.

Human Croquet does have some good points. Kate Atkinson’s prose can be very lyrical – yes, parts of it are ludicrously overwritten, but some of the images she creates are beautiful. Even the ones that seem totally irrelevant.

Atkinson is also very good at character. The main characters, Isobel, Charles, Gordon and Debbie are all very distinctive, and there is something quite endearing about them, even if they’re not strictly likeable. Isobel is verging on insanity, which is a bit of a problem when she keeps claiming to be the sanest person in the house, but they’re basically okay, in a weird sort of way.

Then there is Eliza – a genuinely creepy and intriguing character who speaks in italics instead of speech marks, and is unlike anyone I ever remember reading about before. I was quite disappointed when Atkinson explained her origins at the end. Eliza’s backstory was the one part of the book where the vagueness actually worked. Eliza really deserved a better book – or at least a different book. It’s possible she would be even more powerful if the other characters in the book were a bit more typical.

But the story is a major problem. The only reason I finished it is because I like writing reviews, and I think it’s a bit of a cheat to write them when you haven’t read the whole book. One of the big problems with Human Croquet is something I shouldn’t really give away to future readers, but as I’m not recommending this book to anyone, maybe it doesn’t matter. But anyway, if you don’t want to know this, stop reading now. I hate it when characters wake up and discover something was all a dream. Plot devices like that are fine when you’re in Year 3 and it seems quite clever, but in an adult author it is unforgiveable unless you’ve got a very good reason. It’s weak, it’s a cop-out, and it’s effectively telling you to discount that huge chunk of book you’ve just struggled through as it isn’t real. So why did you make us read it?????