Reviews with content warning for Death - Shrines of Gaiety

Ugh. This book was FAR too long for what it was. I liked the story, but I hated the meandering storytelling. I wanted to like it more, but I was just toooooooo bored most of the time.

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katewhite77's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A Glorious Crime Caper

Set in the ceady under world of 1920s Soho night life. Missing girls., bent coppers, straight coppers, an assortment of loveable rouges with some plain old rouges thrown in. Oh and did I mention and did I mention a fiesty librarian on the lookout for adventure. All woven together in a beautifully crafted narrative.

This is the definition of Darkly Comic and is easily one of my favourite books of the year so far. I would like to particularly recommend the audiobook as the narrator does the humour in this novel an incredible amount of justice.

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lostinthelibrary's review

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adventurous mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

This was a bit of a mixed bag for me. I was pulled in from the start by the setting and the intriguing plot. A lot of mystery was set up early on and the fast paced plot and short chapters kept me reading. I did however find the ending a bit unsatisfying and rushed with a lot of the plotlines dropped or very hastily wrapped up.

I can't believe how many characters were suddenly killed off in the last 5% of the book!

.

There are a lot of characters in this book and they are not given equal care and attention. There were characters I loved (Gwendolen, Freda, Kitty and Ramsey to name a few) characters I hated who I was supposed to like (Frobisher!) and countless characters who were very thinly drawn. For such a character based novel, I found this disappointing.

However, saying all this, I can't deny that I had a lot of fun reading this book and it makes me want to read more from this era.

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rondasue27's review against another edition

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mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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nialiversuch's review

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dark emotional funny informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

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znvisser's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This was fun! Lots going on, many characters including intelligent dogs (love it), and then women and girls everywhere following their dreams and outsmarting men. Early on my brain made a Peaky Blinders comparison and honestly, I held on to it because it helped me with the setting as I don't recall having read a lot of fiction from this time period before. I was however a bit disappointed by Niven's character, who was introduced interestingly (e.g. as a relative outsider to his family, coming back from the war) but his character fell flat fast and these promises from the start didn't really get thoroughly explored. I do understand it's hard to have so many characters and have them all be layered and pronounced, but the author succeeded in this far better for the women (and policemen?) in this story. However, I am not going to complain any more about that, because we all know there are more than enough books out there where women are prone to this fate. I loved how the author used perspective changes and timelines to play with the reader's perspective. In part due to it, the plot wasn't as mysterious as the setting, with many easter eggs and predictable turns and events

, and a slightly unsurprising moral along the lines of "the bad people are not as bad as they seem, and certainly not as bad as the people who are supposed or appear to be doing better"

. But to me there was some playfulness to the predictability and I rather enjoyed it, moreover because I am not particularly looking to be misled in my reading. Anyway - fun! Might pick up some more historical fiction from this time period.

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ssmylie's review

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I loved a few characters and wanted to see them win or get to a bring resolution... but it landed flat at the end for me.

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zosiablue's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

One of those books that felt like I was watching real life casually unfold. Just effortless rolling from scene to scene as if it was happening in real time. I don't know how Kate Atkinson does it. And at first, I read this as just a moment in time without a driving point - a look into 1920s gangster cocktail club glitterati London. But then she pulled a Six Feet Under finale at the end and I realized the Moment in Time WAS the point. These wild things happen and then they're just history. So tart in the moment and then gone. The algia in nostalgia. Dang.

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