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ceejcook's review
informative
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder
Moderate: Misogyny and Drug use
nialiversuch's review
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug abuse, Forced institutionalization, Sexual assault, Physical abuse, Violence, Death, Drug use, Murder, Police brutality, Medical content, Mental illness, Alcohol, and Grief
Moderate: Rape, Misogyny, and Sexual assault
Minor: War, Abandonment, and Abortion
amyvl93's review
dark
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Kate Atkinson is always a must-read author for me, and Shrines of Gaiety is definitely a favourite out of her most recent releases that I've read.
This novel puts us in 1920s London, and a world of underground nightclubs where the guests get to live out their hedonistic dreams after the despair of the First World War, but where organised crime is rampant and young women are the ones paying the price. The novel has a sprawling cast of characters - Nellie Coker, queen of the London nightclub scene and her six children; Frobisher, a police detective bent on shutting her down; Gwendolen, who comes to London to find some missing girls and who gets pulled into Frobisher's case and Freda, a teenager who runs away to London to find stardom.
Despite this sprawling cast, I still found myself interested in every story - if anything, there are some characters that I would have liked to know more about. Atkinson is great at developing characters in relatively few pages, and each felt distinctive (aside from those that were purposefully bland) and I think I would have happily read books about all of them. The sense of place here is also excellent, I really felt like I was in the clubs, on the streets of Soho, and there's part of me that's slightly saddened that I won't get to experience a Lyons Tea Room.
Atkinson's prose is often humorous, which is needed when much of the content is quite dark. This isn't a novel that has a neat perfect ending (far from it), and the slight time slipping that Atkinson utilises to give us slightly more information than the characters worked well for me. The focus on the the role of women in a period where they had experience independence and played key roles during the war, and the way they were seen as lesser or entirely disposable by men on their return was really interesting. There were a couple of things about the plot I wasn't wild about, for instance, I could have done without the sprinkle of romance as I didn't really feel like any of those characters really knew each other well enough for it to take up so much of their brain space.
On the whole, really enjoyed this and it feels ripe for a fun TV adaptation.
This novel puts us in 1920s London, and a world of underground nightclubs where the guests get to live out their hedonistic dreams after the despair of the First World War, but where organised crime is rampant and young women are the ones paying the price. The novel has a sprawling cast of characters - Nellie Coker, queen of the London nightclub scene and her six children; Frobisher, a police detective bent on shutting her down; Gwendolen, who comes to London to find some missing girls and who gets pulled into Frobisher's case and Freda, a teenager who runs away to London to find stardom.
Despite this sprawling cast, I still found myself interested in every story - if anything, there are some characters that I would have liked to know more about. Atkinson is great at developing characters in relatively few pages, and each felt distinctive (aside from those that were purposefully bland) and I think I would have happily read books about all of them. The sense of place here is also excellent, I really felt like I was in the clubs, on the streets of Soho, and there's part of me that's slightly saddened that I won't get to experience a Lyons Tea Room.
Atkinson's prose is often humorous, which is needed when much of the content is quite dark. This isn't a novel that has a neat perfect ending (far from it), and the slight time slipping that Atkinson utilises to give us slightly more information than the characters worked well for me. The focus on the the role of women in a period where they had experience independence and played key roles during the war, and the way they were seen as lesser or entirely disposable by men on their return was really interesting. There were a couple of things about the plot I wasn't wild about, for instance, I could have done without the sprinkle of romance as I didn't really feel like any of those characters really knew each other well enough for it to take up so much of their brain space.
On the whole, really enjoyed this and it feels ripe for a fun TV adaptation.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Murder, Misogyny, Abortion, and Sexual assault
Minor: Mental illness and Drug use
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