Festive Spirits by Kate Atkinson
About the author
Kate Atkinson was born in 1951 and is an English writer of novels, plays and short stories. She is the creator of the Jackson Brodie detective novels. She has won the Whitbread Book of the Year in 1995 and in 2013 and 2015 she won the Costa Book Awards.
Blurb
Three Festive Stories
Review
This was a nice short read of only 68 pages and although I read it in one sitting it can easily be dipped into.
The first story is called Lucy’s Day and it is all based on Lucy a mother of four who has given up her top career job to look after her family and in a way look after her elderly cleaner who doesn’t do much cleaning anymore and really just needs company. This is just one day in the hectic life of Lucy and out of all the chaos it shows the Christmas spirit coming through and that no matter how busy you are over Christmas you can still take time to appreciate the magic of it all.
The second story Festive Spirit was my least favourite of the three. I really hated the ending of this story, I found it disappointing and frustrating. I was hoping for so much more from this story and it just felt like a major cop out at the end.
The third story was my favourite. It showed that, for some, Christmas can be a lonely affair and also a time of bad news. However, it also showed that Christmas can be the time of contemplation and planning new beginnings. My favourite part was when Gerald was walking Dog and came along to the church; it really warmed my heart. This story was truly beautiful and it brought a little tear to my eye.
I gave this book 3 out of 5 Dragons because I just did not enjoy the second story. However, the first and third story make this book a well worth read and I highly recommend it.
Purchase Links
I’m glad you enjoyed this collection on the whole, although it’s a shame about the second story. I’m definitely going to buy a copy of this one now. Lovely review 🙂
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Thank you for your lovely feedback. I really enjoyed the first and last stories especially the last, it was beautiful but the second just really disappointed me at the end. It felt like she had given up with it almost. However that is just my opinion, we are all different thankfully. I really hope you enjoy it and I look forward to seeing what you think. 🙂
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