Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an electronic copy to read in exchange for an honest review.

Oh thus was a brilliant work of short, interconnected stories. I love Kate Atkinson and how she can weave a tale. This is a superb collection and I honestly wish each story was a novel. I want a book about The Void!!!

A compilation of short stories, written with a lot of teeny descriptive details that enhance the stories. I’m not a short story person, but I found several that were disturbing and interesting .

Kate Atkinson returns with a collection of loosely connected short stories. They hop and skip through various genres, making them hard to categorize. For example: there's an apocalypse that occurs more or less by clockwork, a talking horse, witches, a dead woman wandering an afterlife, an actor falling for a prince, a soap opera, a man meeting his girlfriend's family, and other interesting elements that play with fairy tales, family drama and satire.

Each short is unsettling, odd, and darkly humourous, while Atkinson demonstrates narrative control with a sprinkling of whimsy. I also liked the sense of surrealism and horror all delivered in each story, leaving one in appreciation of the author's experience and wit.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Penguin Random House Canada for this ARC in exchange for my review.

A collection of 11 interconnected stories where things are just a little off, or unbelievable.

The writing was fantastic, the author did so well telling such strong compelling stories in shorter formats. There was emotion, social commentary, exploring human nature, and fascinating characters. I am just not a short story person, I always wanted more but I can definitely appreciate them for what they are though.

I'm a BIG Kate Atkinson fan and this book was a wild ride! I'm not usually a fan of short stories in my "recreation/fun" read but I'll read anything Kate Atkinson puts down. This was quite the unexpected switch from her usual historical settings to the fantasy. She moved through different genres successfully and kept my attention throughout. Atkinson's writing is fabulous and I love her use of humour. Be sure to check this one out!

An eclectic collection of stories from one of my very favorite authors, which this reader found as unexpectedly delightful as anything ever met, between the pages.

What if you got to do a do-over? Not one, actually, but if you were granted an infinite number of chances to build and rebuild, worlds upon worlds, and an ensemble of characters colliding within these pages, over and over again, their stories morphing each time, in ways that are more than just a little outside the lines - worlds fantastical and as cheerfully tongue-in-cheek as they are wildly imaginative. I can only imagine what fun this must have been to write, as the author mischievously plays with this ‘Sliding Doors’ concept, - blending fairy tales, horror, dystopia, magical realism, and always, such a pervasive smattering of humor and whimsy that, apocalypse aside, this is a world one will find hard to leave.

I love loved this book, and find myself, feeling bereft as I confront the final pages, ever so ready to turn back and reread it. One of my very top books of the year, - where else can you find a book that is pure joy to read, an undercurrent of what feels like terror, and the opportunity to encounter more than one intelligent and talking animal.

A great big thank you to the publisher, the author, and Netgalley for an ARC of this book. All thoughts presented are my own.

Not a fan of short story collections but a Kate Atkinson fan, I was surprised that I enjoyed this so much. With enough enchantment, fairy tales and world news this is a book to be enjoyed for its imaginative and eloquent writing. Recommended.

I don’t know why it never occurs to me to read short story collections, ’cause I generally enjoy them.

This grouping was particularly weird and wonderful.

I was rather horrified by the first apocalyptic story, but ingesting them, one after another, finding the red threads that linked them all together, was a delight.

The author’s sweeping disregard for genre pleased my promiscuous heart.

My favourite was, of course, Franklin and Connie’s love story, but taken as a whole, it was wholly satisfying.

I cannot wait to dig into Atkinson’s back catalogue.

8/10

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for this quirky ARC.

Normal Rules Don’t Apply is a collection of interconnected short stories, a form of story that I don’t usually like but it’s by Kate Atkinson, a writer I do like a lot. There are eleven stories which cover several genres including scifi, fairytale, and mystery. Some are linked by a character but, in some cases, there seems no link at least until the last couple of stories that bring them all together. Like in any short story collection, some appealed to me more than others. My favourite was Spellbound, a fairytale within a story with a completely unexpected twist at the end. And speaking of great twist endings, I found Crime and Punishment a kinda dull family drama until the end which was a definite wow, I did not see that coming. Overall, a very entertaining and fun collection and. I recommend it to anyone who loves stories that take you in surprising directions.

I received this book from Netgalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review

These short stories are crafted with a deft hand, flirting with one another as they progress along. The first few in the collection were particularly good, spare and deep at once, as Atkinson masterfully indicates a great deal in just a few sentences. I liked the elements of enchantment and fable particularly in "Spellbound," which falls fittingly in the centre of the book and itself flows in and out of fairytale and reality, just as the other stories weave and interconnect with it. In the meantime, Franklin is such a surprisingly endearing character that you're glad he continues to pop in later stories and can't help wanting the best for him. Both funny and fanciful, antiquated and modern, it's a sharp set of stories that feels somewhat coy, not holding things back from the reader, but not always spelling them out.

This short story collection is by acclaimed, award-winning novelist Kate Atkinson. I had read several of her full-length novels and appreciated her brilliant writing and storytelling. Short stories are not my favourite category, but I was anxious to read 'Normal Rules Don't Apply' because I enjoyed her novels. Some of the stories are straightforward and whimsical, while others are odd and puzzling. I thought the closing chapters were downright bizarre. They cover a wide range of subjects, moods, and themes. Included are fantasy, surrealism, love, murder, betrayal, magic spells, horror, humour, existentialism, and dread of the possible end of the world with many human and animal casualties. Recurring characters connect the stories. It is a magical world where dogs and horses talk.

Franklin, a generally unfortunate young man with a dysfunctional home life, unlucky in life and love, has a change in fortune when a racehorse speaks to him. He returns in other stories, visits his girlfriend's weird family, and finds himself betrayed and blamed for a murder. He comes up with an idea for video games based on Jane Austin and other authors that will appeal to middle-aged women and finds work with a TV production of a Greenacres TV soap opera.
In addition, there is a fairytale about a Queen, ghosts, a woman describing her post-death experiences, and a young actress in love with a British prince (the Spare). The romance ends when the King shows up at her door and issues a threat.

The various stories are lightly connected, vibrant, and emotional, with sharp observations about the human condition.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early electronic copy in return for an honest review. The book is due to be published on September 12.

I received a copy of this book of short stories from the publisher via NetGalley.

These were entertaining, but odd. Most had the tone of a folktale, and then towards the end there were creator gods. There were lots of links and echoes, and I have not attempted to think hard about how they all fit together, but they were funny in places and held my interest. I prefer this author's more serious novels though.

Having enjoyed several of Kate Atkinson's novels, I was excited for this collection despite the fact that short story collections are my least favorite format, even when delivered by my favorite writers, as they are so invariably hit or miss. Unfortunately I found this to be true here as well, though I appreciated that the collection as a whole is never random or disjointed because of the underlying interconnectedness of the pieces. We get off to a tremendous start with the apocalyptic 'The Void', which is rendered even more chilling due to recent history (pandemic, anyone?) and what it revealed (or confirmed) about human behavior. This collection has it all - fantasy, mysticism, horror, magic, absurdity, irreverence, surrealism, humor, and above all, the absurdity of the human condition - it's quite fun to abandon all pretense of reality as a reader and submit to a world in which horses and dogs speak, the universe blinks, and ghosts and Queens and sorcerers run rampant.