Atonement (edit title)

• Rated 5 stars

“This is the best book that I've ever read, hands-down. The novel shows how a lie can ruin the lives of everyone involved. The movie is fantastic too. The movie aligns almost perfectly with the book.”

• Rated 5 stars

“This book was just heartbreakingly beautiful. I love reading realistic accounts of love and war. I hate having things sugar-coated (especially those two so important things) which is a quality which so often leads to popular fiction. But Ian McEwan (AKA Ian McCabre) did it again with this one. It's tragic and astounding and basically perfect. The movie was also quite good, though not nearly as. ”

• Rated 5 stars

“A story of right and wrong, love and war, and childhood mistakes. Brought me almost to tears.”

• Rated 3 stars

“Is it bad that I liked the movie more...?”

• Rated 0 stars

“Ian McEwan's Booker Prize-nominated Atonement is his first novel since Amsterdam took home the prize in 1998. But while Amsterdam was a slim, sleek piece, Atonement is a more sturdy, more ambitious work, allowing McEwan more room to play, think, and experiment.

We meet 13-year-old Briony Tallis in the summer of 1935, as she attempts to stage a production of her new drama "The Trials of Arabella" to welcome home her older, idolized brother Leon. But she soon discovers that her cousins, the glamorous Lola and the twin boys Jackson and Pierrot, aren't up to the task, and directorial ambitions are abandoned as more interesting prospects of preoccupation come onto the scene. The charlady's son, Robbie Turner, appears to be forcing Briony's sister Cecilia to strip in the fountain and sends her obscene letters; Leon has brought home a dim chocolate magnate keen for a war to promote his new "Army Ammo" chocolate bar; and upstairs, Briony's migraine-stricken mother Emily keeps tabs on the house from her bed. Soon, secrets emerge that change the lives of everyone present....

The interwar, upper-middle-class setting of the book's long, masterfully sustained opening section might recall Virginia Woolf or Henry Green, but as we move forward--eventually to the turn of the 21st century--the novel's central concerns emerge, and McEwan's voice becomes clear, even personal. For at heart, Atonement is about the pleasures, pains, and dangers of writing, and perhaps even more, about the challenge of controlling what readers make of your writing. McEwan shouldn't have any doubts about readers of Atonement: this is a thoughtful, provocative, and at times moving book that will have readers applauding. --Alan Stewart, Amazon.co.uk --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. ”

• Rated 5 stars

“A unique plot with a shocking twist. If possible read the book before seeing the movie. While I think the movie is great it does not quite capture the depth and eloquence of the novel.”

• Rated 5 stars

“ This romance is one of the most touching I've read. It was so powerfully written and their story so gutwrenching. McEwan truly does get to the core of the characters and emits an emotional response from the reader. It was so difficult to put down but I didn't want it to end.”

• Rated 4 stars

“An absolutely fabulous, thoughtful writer--a near genius with words. The story is rewarding, interesting and in some ways, a magnificent plot. There cannot be a happy ending given the nature of the plot. McEwan uses the device of escaping to another life by skipping 50 years to bring the novel to a considered conclusion, but for me, while the book is absolutely readable and gratifying, the ending is unsatisfactory. Atonement is achieved, but at great, great cost and it is, finally a selfish atonement as it exists only in the mind of the protagonist. A selfish atonement is not a conclusion.”

• Rated 5 stars

“ Took me 50 pages or so to really get into the story, but once I did, I couldn't put it down. Wonderful characters and a setting that I could see every time I opened the book. One of my favorites.”