Rating: 
Summary: Turgid
Review: A disappointment. Hard to believe it was written after the jewel-like Human Croquet.
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant Wordplay
Review: Atkinson is the sort of writer I read in a blissful state. Her characters are many layered, her wordplay is fantastical, her plotline engrossing. I appreciate that her characters are, while not always exactly sane, intelligent. That's not something I can say about many novelists.She is a new find for me, and I'm very happy to have found a writer I enjoy as much as Barbara Trapido. From me, this is a very high compliment.
Rating: 
Summary: a cough syrup haze
Review: atkinson's third novel is unconventional, witty, and wry with loads of wordplay and mixing up of plots and characters. you've got to be in a special mood to read her novels and i waited several months after getting the book to be in just the right mood to dive in. atkinson's novels read like life in a cough syrup haze -- the characters and events as hazy as the fog that envelopes the scottish setting of this story. her descriptions and vocabulary and meandering plots are something entirely new. i looked up the meaning of words on just about every page, as i do with will self's works. if you liked her first two novels, then go ahead and read 'emotionally weird.' i think you'll agree that it's a fun and engaging and witty book. you just have to forget about all those conventional novels you've read and suspend your disbelief for the duration. if you've never read atkinson, then start with the first two novels to gain a better appreciation for the third. she's also a spendid short story writer -- check out the ian st. james award collection titled 'snapshots' for her award-winning story 'karmic mothers - fact or fiction.' it's a wee story at 8 pages long, but it has a big impact and is a good introduction to her writing.
Rating:
Summary: A meandering accumulation of characters and incidents
Review: Based on a very positive short review in The New Yorker, I sought this book out at the book store. I read the first ten or so pages right there in the store and was delighted. I'm sorry now that I shelled out the money for the book. What begins as an appeallingly loose, ragged and witty satire of university life in the early 70s quickly degenerates into a bewilderingly aimless accumulation of minor characters and wacky little incidents. In the course of a single short chapter a dozen seemingly irrelevant characters wander in and out spouting mildly amusing one-liners and non sequiters and behaving strangely, each character and incident replacing the preceding one with head-spinning and ultimately mind-numbing illogic. Maybe you have to be as stoned as the characters themselves are for it all to make sense. Maybe if you persist to the end all of this business resolves itself brilliantly. I didn't have the patience to continue past the half way point.
Rating:
Summary: Best and Funniest Book of the Year
Review: Besides the fact that I laughed out loud too often to explain while reading this book (e.g. protagonist Effie's boyfriend Bob, with his silly slumbering Star Trek mumblings and collegiate torpor, is sheer hilarious classical material), it also surpassed all my wildest literary expectations: more sophisticated and smarter romantical/fanciful interweaving than Barbara Trapido; intelligent and interesting characters well worth knowing; inventive narrative (narratee?) line; creative format; and best of all, an anti-baloney perspective on academic philosopher/sophist/post -modern/deconstuctionist idiots but that still has an awesome sense of humor. Did I mention that I laughed out loud Very Often reading this book? That Never Happens to me!. I stayed up nights to finish this, and I cannot wait for more from Ms Atkinson. It really led me to understand that my experience in an American college (studying Classics) during the 80s was not at all too different from this account of life at University of Dundee, Scotland in the 70s. What a gas! Funny thing but - when I got to the final part and saw it was prefaced '1999' - I was surprised, until I remembered that the first part was prefaced '1972' or whatever - it all seems so perfectly au courant. Maybe that was because so many characters said "As if" and the author alludes to sheep cloning - was that done first at U of Dundee? Anyone?
Rating: 
Summary: Cover design misleading...
Review: Call me shallow, but, from the cover of this book (a whimsical, illustration with an equally whimsical font), I thought, being unfamiliar with this author, that I was in for an Anna Maxted/Shannon Olsen type of read. (Sorry if I spelled the last names wrong). I do like reading novels of substance, but I felt that the cover design on this novel completely misrepresented the content. I am disappointed. I am (substance or not) perplexed by the novel's structure and not too interested in the gazillion characters presented (there are too many for my taste!). Also, I felt like the fact that Nora kept commenting on the fact that there were "too many characters" and "no plot" in the protagonist's stories were just excuses for putting in too many characters and failing to develop a plot. It's probably just all way over my head. I can tell the author is talented, it's just not my speed.
Rating:
Summary: It is a funny book
Review: I gave it a 3 because it IS a good read. It's not the best but still worth reading. I did find the characters to be engaging and amusing. Prof. Cousins is a hoot. The different plots/settings take time to get use to but you quickly understand that the "real" story is happening with Nora on the island. Overall, if you're looking for a deep, meaninful read I'd say this isn't it. If it's a quick funny book you're after, this is a decent choice. It seems as though Ms. Atkinson had a lot of good ideas, but just couldn't make them all gel together.
Rating:
Summary: Weird and funny
Review: I had a hard time getting into this book - too many characters introduced all at once and so briefly that I couldn't keep them straight. I'm glad I stuck with it though because about halfway through, I got drawn into the story and the strange and quirkly happenings. Atkinson is a really funny writer and I laughed outloud several times throughout the book. Although I really enjoyed the second half of the book, I was disappointed in the ending - well not the ending itself but the way the last chapter gives you all the answers to everything instead of giving more hints along the way so the reader could figure it out.
Rating:
Summary: Perspective Lost
Review: I had enjoyed "Behind the Scenes at the Museum" and "Human Croquet" so much that I eagerly anticipated Kate Atkinson's next release. I must admit, I'm a bit disappointed. Atkinson's unconventional yet compelling use of perspective has been present in all of her novels. However, in "Emotionally Weird", the story becomes completely buried beneath dozens of functionless characters and hazy motives. Her unique style... fresh and funny... shone through in her first two novels. Here it is lost to a weaker plot and gloomy scenery. I must admit that part of what may have alienated me (as a silly American)was the overwhelming presence of unfamiliar Scottish references. Whereas these same type of landmarks may have been present in "Behind the Scenes at the Museum", there they were made familiar and funny by their meaning to the more likable characters that she had created.
Rating: 
Summary: Extremely Offbeat, Funny and, yes, Weird
Review: I had never read anything by Kate Atkinson before this and was quite pleasantly surprised. What I hastily concluded from the jacket description was that this was going to be a play-like dialogue between a mother and daughter. This is, instead, a multilayered, multigenre piece of experimental fiction that is fun to read, thought-provoking and original. As much as anything else, Emotionally Weird is about writing and the creative process. Effie, the young woman who is the narrator, tells stories which may or may not be true to Nora, an older woman who may or may not be her mother. The two live on a secluded island off Scotland. The stories Effie tells are mainly whimsical character studies of bohemian college life in the 1970s. By contrast, the scenes that take place on the island beteen Effie and Nora are told in a somberly poetic, almost gothic (and very Celtic) style. To further complicate things, Effie is also herself writing a detective novel about yet another set of characters. If this sounds confusing, at times it is. Yet, you don't have to completely understand what's going on to enjoy this novel. After all, there is very little plot to worry about following. There are, appropriately enough, several references to Alice in Wonderland, though, compared to Emotionally Weird, Lewis Carroll's tale is almost conventional and straightforward. James Joyce is also mentioned, but despite her radical style, Atkinson is much, much easier to read. There is a very deliberate pointlessness to the book. When Effie is at college, for example, there are scenes that are little more than parades of absurd characters. Professors are portrayed as gibberish-speaking buffoons; some of my favorite scenes took place in the classroom, where the professors uttter meaningless jargon to apathetic students. Nora often interrupts the tales to deliver her quite valid criticisms, such as the fact that Effie creates too many characters. Some of the scenes could be considered more like writing exercises than actual scenes that propel a story. Some readers will find this novel tedious; it does take a suspension of your usual expectations regarding fiction. I enjoyed the contrasting styles and the existentialism of the characters that is alternately tragic and comical. Finally, I found it's labyrinthian stories within stories to be a fascinating exploration of creativity and of identity.
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