Atonement

Rating:
Summary: I can't stop thinking about this book
Review: The best book I've read this year. The perspective of a child maturing to womanhood and finally into an old woman, engrossing battle scenes, a fabulous love story - I was shocked to read reviewers who weren't spellbound as my family and friends were. To the point made by some other reviewers that the plot was difficult to follow, I did go back and reread the last chapter, but was glad for the excuse. While I do agree that pretentious prose can be a turn-off - I've never read more than a chapter in any Louis Begley book - I disagree that this book was off-putting. I found the distinctly British style essential to the story - to make the action believable, it could only happen in a society where form is primary.

Rating:
Summary: An extremely well written, engrossing novel
Review: I myself am a writer, so that is part of the reason Atonement may have resonated so strongly with me, but I think a larger reason why I liked this book so much is BECAUSE of McEwan's character development. People have said that it stopped after part one, however I don't think it did. Reality is many people are haunted by their past and it often times effects their lives thereafter. Briony's whole family was torn apart by her "crime" and that would have a lasting effect on a child, an effect that never would have been had on an adult. Children deal with the problems of life much differently than adults, and how Briony dealt with her dilemas as a child is the basis of the book. And although yes, the book is very much about the craft and power of writing, something that did strike a very strong cord with me, it is also about the pain of love and the human heart and the power of forgiveness. To overlook these elements of the book is a big loss to the reader.
From a writing standpoing, McEwan writes beautifully. Although slow at parts in the beginning, the novel is thoroughly engrossing after the first 50 pages. McEwan is such a descriptive writer that you can acually almost picture as if you are there. Some people may think this tedious and boring, but I think it adds valuable depth and character to the story.
Overall, Atonement is a well developred, beautifully written novel that I recommend to anyone who wants a book with a fair amount of emotional depth.

Rating:
Summary: Huh?.....Didn't get it at all...
Review: This book got such glowing reviews and I expected something...well I don't know quite what I was expecting but it definitely wasn't something as boring, pretentious and confusing as this "serious" work of fiction. I should have known- every time I pick up a Booker Prize winner or finalist, it's the same type of mind-numbing, high-falutin' Brit-prose that makes me wonder how anyone stays awake reading this stuff. Just awful.

Rating:
Summary: I gave up
Review: After 70 pages, I started thumbing...there's some action in here, right? The paragraphs get shorter and more happens than a breeze and a sidelong glance, right? Wrong.

This isn't a novel for everyone, despite the generally glowing reviews in the book press. Although it is set in the 20th century, it struck me as more 19th century in spirit - if you like Jane Austen, you'll probably like Atonement. It's a perceptive novel of life among the wealthy and smart, and if you hold it at arm's length, indeed there is a good plot, with a lot happening. I enjoyed its perceptiveness greatly at first - McEwan does have some sensitive, striking, and original observations about the lives of children and how we get along with each other.

But as I slugged it through one long paragraph after another, with the phone and the kids and general restlessness interrupting every other page - nah. Couldn't do it. Hats off to those who could.

Rating:
Summary: almost a masterpiece
Review: McEwan is a writer capable of searing novels ("Enduring Love") and much slighter productions ("Amsterdam" - won the Booker prize, but it's not clear why).

"Atonement" belongs to the former category and is his best work to date. It is a complex book, beautifully observed and written. The early passages describe a world not far from the one I grew up in -- the writing is impeccably accurate and wholly believable. The appalling mistake made by a young woman is the keystone to the novel, which, for me, is about unintended consequences, and alternative outcomes. The novel moves on to the British expeditionary force's retreat to Dunkirk in the early stages of World War II -- certainly, the nadir of british fortune at the time. Again the writing is pitch-perfect and you are absorbed by the general sense of helplessness, though it's fair to point out that what started as a rout became the foundation upon which Churchill built for the rest of the war, at least psychologically.

Then McEwan starts to play with reality: did his protagonist die in the retreat or did he live? Did he reconnect with his former girl-friend, and for that matter, with his accuser who did him great harm? What really happened, and what is simple imagination? The puzzle this represents to this reader at least is enthralling and engaging to an unusual degree.

The resolution at the end of the novel offers an explanation that seems on the surface both logical and satisfying. But there is enough of a question left for the reader to turn the book over in the mind for weeks afterwards.

Italo Calvino has the same mischievous delight in moving the reader around from preconception to alternative explanations as does McEwan in this wholly satisfactory novel, that does however leave a faint thread of confusion. I await his next with great enthusiasm.

Rating:
Summary: a soaring achievemnt
Review: there's nothing else like this book. this is probably my favorite book at the moment.

Rating:
Summary: First McEwan Read
Review: Overall I thought this was an excellent book. Especailly teh ending, I reread it seveal times. My only complaint is that at some points I felt that the book was dragging due to too much description.

Rating:
Summary: I can't believe this got a good review!
Review: This book started out well but ended in a thud of nothingness. The ending made no sense but the book fell out of favor about half-way through. I suspect people say they love Atonement solely to make people think they read "serious" fiction. A waste of valuable time.

Rating:
Summary: Vintage McEwan...
Review: In my opinion, this is the best of his books I have read thus far. The others are, "Amsterdam" and "Enduring love". All the qualities that make his writing so distinctive and great are here. The ability to draw you into a plot. The ability to draw you into the minds of his characters and the dynamics of a situation like few others can.
The one thing I still feel is missing from his books is any kind of real empathy, passion or romance. One feels as though Mr. McEwan is describing his characters and the happenings with a wonderful capacity to translate all of it into words, but does so in a very clinical, dry manner. It all ends up being a little sterile, kind of like novels of the mystery genre, in which gruesome murders are being described without the true horror being felt by anyone reading.
That said I still like his books for what he does have to offer. And I am sure I will read every last one of them.

Rating:
Summary: Unimaginative, Unfulfilling, and Uninspiring
Review: What exactly, I ask myself, was this author trying to say? A young child accuses a young man of a crime. Her guilt possesses her life, excommunicates her sister from the family, and sends the man, who happens to be her sister's lover to prison. Had it been an adult who had done such a thing, the story would have depth, but from the beginning you realize the child has a vivid imagination, as said by the author when he describes her love of colorful words when she writes, which she loves to do. And so from the beginning you understand the police would never believe her story, and there, in my view, is where the story ends. Lives ruined, loves shattered, a young child haunted by one day when she was little? It doesn't work, and it isn't well written. The ending was beautifully put together, and that is why I gave it two stars and not just one. At times the author attempts to help the child recant her original accusation, which would have made sense, but then the author fails us, and doesn't, and tries to make a story out of a ludicrous, more-than-unlikely tale.