I enjoy Kate Atkinson’s novels. She is one of those authors whose books I will always read when she publishes something new, but I was a little hesitant to read Normal Rules Don’t Apply because it is a collection of short stories, and I just don’t get short stories.

That hasn’t changed with reading Normal Rules Don’t Apply, but I do like the stories in this collection, so much so that I wish each story could have been expanded upon. The stories are loosely connected to each other through recurring character or events, so I feel like they could have been made into one cohesive novel, and then maybe I could pin down the theme of this story collection.  

The stories themselves are fantastical in nature, and that is why I find them so entertaining. One features a talking horse, and a talking dog. One is a fairytale about the queen so desperate for a child, she tracks down a witch who helps her hatch a human baby from an egg. Another story is told from the perspective of a ghost. One of the recurring events in the stories is “the Void”, when the world goes dark for five minutes everyday, and whoever is outside during the five minutes of darkness disappears forever, like the rapture. To me, this is a surprising collection of stories considering the novels that I have read by Atkinson are either historical fiction or detective novels. Is that the point of these stories, that life can just be as surprising and unpredictable as fiction? Maybe someone else can read Normal Rules Don’t Apply and let me know what they think.

In any event, if short stories are also not your thing, I do recommend Atkinson’s novels such as Life After Life, A God in Ruins, Transcription, Shrines of Gaiety and Case Histories.