Rating: 
Summary: The clean and predictable lines of tragedy
Review: This book isn't *trying* to be capaciously realistic--be careful about faulting it for things that it doesn't seem to be trying to do in the first place. Its structure is that of a five-act tragedy, each act made up of a number of scenes, and, like many of the best tragedies, its conclusion brings together (in a way that might feel artificial if you demand, rather unreasonably, that your fiction follow the dictates of "real life") various lines that have been cast out through the whole work. This book may strike you as boring if you don't like subtlety in literature, or if you want lots of clearly motivated action. It will probably strike you as fascinating if you enjoy watching more or less ordinary and self-absorbed people come undone because of wholly unexpected developments in their lives. By the end of the book you will wonder whether George Lane is a latter-day, unassuming Iago. I didn't care about these men as much as I cared about Joe Rose and Jed Parry in Enduring Love, but I thought the structure of this text was great. It's a compelling read and more complicated than it seems at first.
Rating: 
Summary: I don't get it.
Review: This book is trite. I can't believe it won the Booker. Thankfully, it is a short book. Skip it. Go read the "House of Sand and Fog" instead.
Rating: 
Summary: A disappointment
Review: I'd been looking forward to AMSTERDAM since reading ENDURING LOVE and hearing that it won the Booker Prize. In addition to being somewhat slim and lightweight as a novel, I'm sorry to say that at the end it turns into a one-joke story (and that joke, while inventive, is so wholly preposterous that it cheapened the rest of the novel). AMSTERDAM had a great beginning but fails to deliver on its promise.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining but surely not worth a Booker Prize
Review: This is an entertaining book, I read it from cover to cover and enjoyed it. The ending is very contrived and simply doesn't work. The description of the creative process and life in Grub street is very well done. Like another reviewer I can't belive this won a Booker prize.
Rating: 
Summary: I' looking for detailed reviews on that book.
Review: Instead of reviewing the book by Ian Mcewan, I'm would rahter get to know detailed reviews and comments on "Amsterdam", additionaly to what has already been said in this page of shorter reviews. I'm especially interested in the part the music and the photographs play in that novel and would really be glad to get to know some opinions, conclusions and ideas to these particular items.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent writing; clever plot
Review: This book had the subtly lacking in so much of today's middlebrow, popular fiction. The characters were well defined, their mid-life crises interesting. I enjoyed it and laughed at the clever outcome. I agree with other Amazon reviewers that the end is a bit contrived, but I prefer to think of it as "neat." Ian McEwan's books all concern moral issues. They are excellent, too. Try "The Innocent" for a thrill.
Rating:
Summary: A genuine original...not at a;; an ordinary social satire
Review: Initially, I was having difficulty grasping the motivation behind the plotline in Amsterdam. However, as I proceeded, it became more and more digestible and I recognized it for its amazingly clever singularity. By the time I finished, I couldn't wait to read another of McEwen's works. What a talent!
Rating:
Summary: Anticipation was and wasn¿t rewarded
Review: Having just finished the book, I was left with the pleasant feeling you sometimes get after seeing a movie that makes you think for awhile. However, the more I thought about the book, the more agitated I became with what it had left me.In place of well rounded, sympathetic (and by this I don't mean "nice" but rather "understandable") characters, we merely see two opposing, disparate sides -- how the two main characters see themselves and how they see each other. An attempt to reconcile these views to further understand their motivation is never made, therefor leaving the reader with a feeling that the two men are acting with no reason, no will even - other than what the author has forced upon them via the plot. The pace was fine through most of the book, although I felt that details surrounding Clive's run-in with the law were skimmed over and could have been elaborated further - it was supposed to be a major card dealt in the game between the two figures. Instead it was dismissed with a few paragraphs. An interesting premise and a few good twists are a nice start. Add in further development of the characters and perhaps some humour -- black humour would have been a welcome touch and relief -- instead of detailed navel-gazing, especially with regard to Clive. And I felt that Molly should have been a more decisive driving force in their actions. It was an enjoyable read, but ultimately, I was left with more questions (and arguments) than answers.
Rating:
Summary: disappointing
Review: I can't believe this won a Booker. I suppose it was well written, but the story was awful. It could have easily been a made-for-tv movie.
Rating:
Summary: Hardly up to Booker standard!
Review: Come on, a Booker award winner??? This book makes a mockery of the entire selection system. It was a self absorbed negitive short story, and nothing more. I can hardly believe this 'novel' was seen as matching the standards of The Famished Road or Midnight's children.
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