Rating: 
Summary: A Real Disappointment
Review: Amsterdam was my first Ian McEwan novel. Several months ago I glanced at a review and when I saw it in the book store and noted that it had recieved the Booker Award I figured it was worth a read. Being rather cautious, I sat in the book store and read the first 5 pages which I found intriguing. However, it seems that the book went downhill from the moment I left the book store. I don't know what kind of criteria the Booker Committe uses, but I just didn't see this book as worthy of any kind of award. The moral dilemna that were suppose to develope just didn't happen. The story had potential starting out, but the author just didn't develope them. Frankly, this is one that I sure wish I had gotten from the library.
Rating: 
Summary: Clinical and cool, literate and funny
Review: Amsterdam begins with two old pals, Vernon Halliday and Clive Linley, at the cremation of a valued mutual friend, Molly Lane. Molly was cut down in her prime: a slow, lingering death, with no dignity at the end. Depressed by her demise, Vernon and Clive are determined it won't happen to them, and each agrees to dispatch the other should they degenerate humiliatingly like Molly. As Clive puts it in his stiff English way: "...just supposing I did get ill in a major way, like Molly, and I started to go downhill and make terrible mistakes, you know...I'm asking you to help me if it ever got to the point where you could see it was the right thing..." Vernon agrees, only on the condition that Clive do the same for him. A big mistake, and Amsterdam is really a delightful shaggy-dog tale to see which friend does in the other first. What makes this most recent winner of the Booker Prize even more delicious is that Vernon and Clive are famous. Vernon is the editor of The Judge, declining national broadsheet, and Clive is Britain's most eminent composer, charged with writing a symphony for the new millennium. They are seriously famous, in fact: another of Molly's friends is Julian Garmony, right-wing Foreign Secretary, and Molly had taken photos of Garmony indulging in his penchant for cross-dressing. Although both characters are morally questionable, they are not entirely unlikable - this has much to do with McEwen's playful sense of humour. He is particularly adept at depicting the frantic, clamorous working day of a newspaper editor. There's a hilarious passage early where Vernon presides over a daily editorial meeting, debating the newsworthy merits of Turkish pottery and Siamese twins refusing to talk with each other. At the end, we learn why there was no memorial service for Molly, in an agreeably chill twist of the tale. Vernon and Clive fail to learn anything of importance from their friendships with her, and duly pay the price. This is perhaps McEwen's best book to date, and a deserving winner of the Booker in any year: brilliantly written, profound and probing, with a tone that is unmistakably McEwen - clinical and cool, literate and funny. Fans of this author will wonder if the druggy denouement in Amsterdam is a sly self-reference to one of his earliest fictions, 'Pornography', which appeared in his second volume of short stories, published in 1978.
Rating: 
Summary: Well-written, hard to put down, but predictable ending.
Review: McEwan clearly has a talent for crafting words into prose that flows easily and with grace, but I found the substance of the plot lacking. I found the much hyped unexpected climax predictable. I had it figured out not even halfway through. Altogether though despite the weakness of the ending, the book was hard to put down and enjoyable largely due to McEwan's writing.
Rating:
Summary: Not McEwan's best work but a fun read nevertheless!
Review: I've never missed an Ian McEwan novel, starting with A Child In Time in the 80's, and there are few novelists that make me want to beat down the doors of my local bookseller when a new book is released. However, this wasn't McEwan's best, and I'm curious as to why this book was the Booker Prize winner, instead of Enduring Love, last year's better choice, imho. This was a funny book, filled with comic action and questionable personal responsibility; a book of choices good and bad. Clive and Vernon were interesting characters, but I was more curious about the disease from which Molly succumbed. The ending was fun but I think more could have been made of the story. A decent read, a fun read, but I'd wait for the paperback version.
Rating:
Summary: good characters, interesting twist, but not quite believable
Review: although i enjoyed this book, it does not quite measure up to recent booker prize winners last orders and god of small things. more length and development of characters may have made the ending more believable. nonetheless, i did enjoy it. amsterdam tackles some tough issues in a creative and entertaining way and makes some compelling statements. it is a quick read and a page turner that can be gobbled up in one sitting.
Rating:
Summary: Amsterdam is well deserving of the Booker.
Review: Mr. McEwan is well deserving of the Booker Prize. His new novel Amsterdam is sharp and intelligently written. The plot is tightly nit, economic in wit and comes to a surprising and smart conclusion. Opening in England and closing in Amsterdam, the story unfolds from the crematorium of a female Don Quixote, Molly Lane. Her two favorite lovers, a self-absorbed but successful composer and a conflicted editor, are sadly suffering from their loss but distracted enough to scope out the panorama of high profile schemers in attendance. A political scandal speedily emerges as the composer rushes to finish his celebratory millenium symphony, commissioined by the Parliment, and the editor struggles to defend a controversial publishing decision, which not only threatens the future of his newspaper, the Judge, but their life long friendship as well. Ian McEwan is a skilled storyteller with a good sense of timing and an unobtrusive sense of morality. His writing is refreshing and even-handed, never assuming and perpetually driven. If you have lost your faith in wise writing, McEwan will restore it. The only flaw is that every character has multiple lovers as well as a spouse and does not seem to mind having shared a little bit. They are not bothered so much by the cheating as they are by the character and politics their lovers have chosen to cheat with. Hardly realistic in this country (or is it?) but it's a forfeit easily made for the rest of the novel which is entertaining and packed with provocative suspense. Amsterdam is a satisfying, full-bodied read from one of the best British writers today.
Rating:
Summary: Not up to standard for a Booker Prize winner
Review: This is the first book I've read by McEwan -- unfortunately, it was also the first time that I've been really disappointed by a Booker Prize winner. The themes and moral issues raised in the book deserved more thougtful treatment than was portrayed by under-developed and uninteresting characters whom I never emphathized with.
Rating:
Summary: Good read, but maybe not a Booker winner
Review: This was my first read of a work by Ian McEwan. I am now about to try another, only because I hope that what I'd heard is right, and that his previous work is more accomplished! This is a quick and interesting read. It has a good plot, yet the character development felt shallow to me. I never really felt like I was being drawn into the story, but rather a distant observer. I didn't sympathize with anyone, but read the book to find out what happened. I will try another by him to confirm that he's Booker-worthy for previous works!
Rating: 
Summary: Lyrical prose, compelling plot.
Review: Apparently, I am in the minority in liking this book (which would, of course, include those individuals involved in selecting the winner of the Booker prize). It has been a long time since I have taken the time to read a novel straight through, but this story -- of the politics of friendship -- kept me hooked from the opening scene. The story opens at the funeral of Molly Lane, and treks the perverse friendship of two of her former lovers -- Vernon and Clive, a writer and composer, respectively. As the tale unfolds, it becomes evident that the loss of Molly -- their only link and their only real identity -- undoes them. In addition to the plot, with an interesting ethical twist regarding the slippery slope of euthenasia, the poetic prose of the novel and the myriad underlying plots make this book a pleasure to read.
Rating:
Summary: It's an action packed story. No words were wasted.
Review: I bought this book shortly after it was released. McEwan was very too the point when describing the characters and the sequence of the events. I couldn't put the book down. However, I find the ending was too abrupt. All in all, it was a good read.
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