A God in Ruins

Author Kate Atkinson says this is a "companion book" to her previously acclaimed novel, Life After Life, told this time more from the perspective of Teddy Todd. One person in my bookgroup described Teddy as "everyman" and that is probably a pretty good summary. Set in England in the run-up to WWII and thereafter, the characters and story lines cover four generations of the Todd family. Teddy seems to lead a pretty idyllic childhood with loving if somewhat laissez-faire parents and an aunt who uses him as the model for a long-running series of boys' adventure books. He has brothers, sisters, dogs, and neighbors, one of whom he is good friends with and eventually marries--maybe.
Teddy follows his father into banking and then joins up and becomes a bomber pilot in WWII. The question is, does he really get captured and spend the last couple years in a POW camp or does he go down with his plane on one of his last ops and drown. Perhaps, as was suggested, the "what if" approach of Atkinson is to highlight the millions who have died in wars, thereby losing the possible future. Most of the book is based on the version where Teddy comes home and marries neighbor girl Nancy and has a daughter and puddles around as a newspaper reporter and lives to a ripe old age while becoming the primary caretaker of his daughter's two children for a chunk of time.
For the most part, I did not like the book. The first reason is that Atkinson jumps around in time and perspective, sometimes from one paragraph to the next, which was maddening and seemed to serve no useful purpose IMHO. The second reason is that I did not like any of the characters very much and some of them I really detested (e.g., Viola). The only times any characters really seemed fully alive and the story line was compelling--to me at least--were the few chapters dealing with Teddy's year's flying a bomber in the war. And, in fact, it seems that was when Teddy reported feeling like a truly vital person. Lots has been written/said about the special camaraderie shared by groups of men in war. Unlike other treatments, however, Atkinson does not glorify or justify war in way, shape or form. Those I heard from who have read both books (Life After Life and this one) like the previous book better. I skipped about 100 pages towards the end of the book and have no inclination to go back and finish it. I might pursue reading some of her several crime novels featuring Jackson Brodie, which have been made into a BBC series, however.