Behold, the first of two short "ack wait I'm not at my goal" books I read in the past three weeks to try to get to my 52 books a year goal. Am I going to make it? No. But I've made peace with it. But onward to the book!

I hadn't read any Atkinson before but in my push to read more books as the year came to an end, a collection of short stories seemed like just the ticket. It's the perfect medium to keep you reading and give you a sense of accomplishment when your goal seems out of reach, I mean you finish an entire STORY in only a number of pages. WINNING.

I didn't know anything about the collection, grabbing as I did in a panic, so it was surprising when I figured out that these were 11 loosely connected short stories. I don't think I've ever read a collection like that, where characters and plots double-dip across all of the short stories, so that was a fun surprise. I applaud Kate's imagination and creativity. These stories were, in a word, zany. In additional words, she traveled genres and tones covering mystery, apocalypse, fantasy, a bit of horror, and even fairy tales. Overall they lean dark, but with underlying humor and amusement.

It was a bit of a wild ride, the only downside being my goal of putting this book down and coming back to it, as I have done with other short story collections, wasn't without consequence as it was tougher to follow. You're better off reading this straight through, like a novel, so that you can easily benefit from and see all the connective threads.