A treasure from the library (Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson)

Member Name: jessyclown

Product:	Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson
Date:	21/03/02 (735 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent book to read

Disadvantages: I wanted it to last forever.

“I exist! I am conceived…” thus starts the story of Ruby Lennox in Kate Atkinson’s first novel ‘Behind the Scenes at the Museum’.

Kate Atkinson is a York born author who writes about places she knows and interweaves them in this novel.

The story of Ruby Lennox is about the life of a young girl from her conception through to adulthood. The start of the story has Ruby in her mother’s womb aware of her mother’s feelings the joys and disappointments she feels. The story continues with the life of Ruby and her family as they live above the pet shop run by her family. Some thing happens to Ruby when she is quite young which she can not remember but involved her being shipped off to her aunt’s house for several weeks. This event has a large effect on Ruby’s life. The story is full of relationships in a family. Eventually Ruby has therapy and is able to remember what happened, it is not quite as the family had thought!

As the story follows Ruby’s life you get glimpses of the family history with many skeletons in the cupboard. Between each chapter of Ruby’s life, which are written from Ruby’s point of view, there are footnotes, which are chapters about the family’s history. The family had faced many hardships and disappointments in life; there are several characters who were affected by war, unhappy marriages, and loss. This is a well-constructed book and written in an entertaining way, I was gripped.

For me the book had an added dimension as I was brought up in York about a decade after Ruby. The places referred to in the book are very familiar to me. I felt slightly frustrated, as I could not work out where Ruby’s home was. The names of the shops and the streets were all there and so familiar. I was even more excited as Ruby ended up in my old school, Queen Anne Grammar School, (now no longer a school). There were references to ev
ents that happened at the school, which I knew well. When girls signed out at lunchtime they had to go in pairs, I remember the walks through the museum gardens with my friends. The sixth formers put on a Christmas party for the first formers; I remember my party and the one we organised. There were references to two teachers I remember, my old Physics teacher, Miss Raven, and the formidable headmistress Miss Whittiker. I found this book was a great read for the memories it brought to me.

I can confirm that the places and some of the people in this book are real and the book portrays a life in York that is in many ways feasible.

I found this book worth reading from my point of view the story is a good and originally written one. The book is easy to read and would make excellent holiday reading. I am about to find more books by Kate Atkinson to see if her style continues to be as good. I do not suppose they will have so many references to my childhood in them!

Summary: