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Summary: The eye of the beholder and consequences
Review: This is a story of a young girl who is trying to balance a lively imagination with the innocent morality of youth with family loyalities with social prejudices of society. The telling of Briony's actions based on her perception of reality is fascinating. The story is frightening also, how lives can be changed forever due to actions with no ill intent. The reader is left to decide if Briony has atoned for her actions. The reader is the beholder and decides the consequences.
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Summary: Stunning descriptions, flat ending
Review: This was my first taste Ian McEwan's body of work, and I will definitely be returning for seconds. His description of both scenery and the minutia of human relationships is deliciously rich. His eye for detail gives the reader not only a clear picture of the events being described, but borders on allowing you a window into physically feeling the atmosphere. Now here comes the criticism....I found myself at times wanting the book to move a bit faster, but was also surprised at the abruptness with which it ends. There's a lack of closure on the story and a sense of disappointment that there is no resolution. While that may be the point, seeing as the book is entitled "Atonement," it still didnt sit comfortably. Perhaps I'm more of a happy ending kind of person...naive as that may be. So, overall....Loved the language and attention to detail, felt the ending dropped off a bit suddenly. Definitely worth a read.
Rating: 
Summary: a confused, powerless story
Review: "Atonement" is, in book-jacket terms, the panoramic story of a lie that profoundly alters the lives of those it touches. It is divided into three parts. The first tells the story of the lie: its background, why it was told, who told it. The last two show the lie's unfolding consequences. For all its careful planning, the book falls short. The first part is excellent: well-written, engaging, full of vibrant characters and an interesting story. The remainder, however, fails to live up to the beginning's promise. The second part of the book is almost devoid of plot, leaving the third part to clumsily resume and conclude the story. By then its emotion is diffused, and the book ends carelessly, trying to be powerful and succeeding only in being amusing and somewhat sad. "Atonement" is worth reading only for the lush preparation of its first part. The rest of the book in its meandering is - like the story itself - a lesson in waste.
Rating: 
Summary: a masterpiece
Review: I can't remember the last time I read a "serious" novel that was such a page-turner. An absolutely compelling book, with such beautifully realized characters and settings that I can't stop thinking about them a week later. This is what writing is all about.
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Summary: I Must Now Read Everything By This Author
Review: Every now and then, you come across a book that is superb in every way. ATONEMENT by Ian McEwan is such a book. From the beginning to end, I was enraptured by McEwan's writing. Briony, the little girl that greets the reader on the first page, is definitely me as a child in every way down to her pudgy knees (see the front cover of the paperback edition). Just like Briony, I was constantly writing stories and plays and hiding things in secret compartment around my room. Fantasy was more real than reality. When innocent young Briony finally decides that real life could be more interesting than her fantasy world, she goes a little too far too fast. And the scarey part is that I can picture myself accidently committing Briony's crime. It's Briony's crime and search for atonement from that crime that is the catalyst for the rest of the story. Ian McEwan makes his characters and history come to life. He touches the marrow of human existence and breaks it down to it's basest form. You have something in common with these characters simply in your humanity. And even if the characters aren't as much like you as Briony is like me, you will find yourself running alongside Robbie in the French countryside in World War II, hiding as planes bomb the roadway from above. And you feel the immediacy and tenderness of Briony as she nurses broken soldiers back to health almost wishing you could help them somehow, too. The ending is quite interesting. Without giving it away in the least, I can say that Briony has finally learned where and when fact and fantasy are most appropriate. When I reached the end of this novel I was determined to read every novel ever written by Ian McEwan. This novel is truly one of the best I've ever read. Although some people have difficulty getting into the book, I was throughly engrossed from beginning to end. I wanted to re-read what I'd just read rather than go onward and come to the end of this magnificent book.
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Summary: Not what it's cracked up to be, back to the library
Review: I didn't care to much for this book, I really was falling asleep and had to put it down after Leon (first 51 pages)came home. I didn't find it interesting and it couldn't hold my attention. I'm amazed at how people have such diverse opinions about this book, this interests more than the reading!
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Summary: On my top 5 list!
Review: I loved this book, I would say it's one of my favorites, I would put it up there with 'To Kill a Mockingbird' - the author has the same ability to really get into every charachter and even writing as a young girl, he really pulls it off! I was totally engrossed in young Briony's world. In our book club, although everyone loved the book, people were split as to which parts they liked best (it's almost 3 stories in one), but we did all agree that at times there is too much detail (hence the 4 stars rather than 5!). Still, it's such a clever premise, the final chapter is especially moving - this is a novel that you could read again and again and see something new every time. Recommended!
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Summary: Less Would Be More!
Review: The plot is simple: through a series of events, 13 year Briony jumps to the erroneous conclusion that her sister's soon-to-be-boyfriend is the rapist of their young cousin. Even when she begins to doubt what she saw, she doesn't back down from her story and the young man spends several years in prison before he wins an appeal. The plot is simple but McEwan's style of writing throws so much verbiage at the reader that you are bombarded with far more information than you need. You find yourself silently screaming "Get to the story!" Instead of empathizing with any of the characters, the reader ends up feeling like he (or she) is on the outside looking in at the lives of people that you really don't care about at all. This is one of those rare books that will probably be far more enjoyable as a made-for- television movie.
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Summary: Very good.
Review: Damn, I wish I could write like this.
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Summary: A childish imagination destroys multiple relationships.
Review: Briony is an imaginative child, an aspiring author. Her fantasies usually revolve around heroines, falls from glory and happy endings. Performing her dramas is also one of Briony's passons and "The Fall of Arabella" was to be the latest production, done in honor of her college-age brother's return from school. The description of the preparations, including role rehearsals by less-than-talented cousins, easily enamor the reader to precocious Briony. That changes dramatically when one of her cousins, Lola, is ... assaulted shortly after Briony witnessed an intimate scene between her sister Cecelia and a would-be lover, Robbie Turner. Robbie Turner is the son of the Tallis family's charlady and has been a favorite of the head of the Tallis household...so much so that Robbie has been college educated by the senior Tallis and he has also agreed to fund Robbie's subsequent medical education. As an aside, it is interesting to see that the British social structure is such that Mrs. Tallis finds such financial backing of someone from the servant class to be inappropriate. For that matter, the education of her eldest daughter, Cecelia, seems a waste of money as well. The quest for an appropriate husband is far more important! Briony utilizes her flair for the dramatic and her penchant for heroics to decide that Robbie has assaulted her sister and the dark figure she witnessed running away from her cousin's assault scene could be no other than Robbie. He is arrested, even though Briony immediately begins to doubt her own pronouncements, and Robbie spends several years in prison. Time is then propelled forward to Robbie's participation in World War II and the flight from Dunkirk. Cecelia is a nurse and Briony is a nursing student, exposed to the brutalities of war as critically injured men are returned from the front. Briony lives the full brunt of her guilt, knowing full well who her cousin's true assailant is. The ending of the story takes an interesting turn and it is for the reader to discover. Briony is in her seventies; she knows that her life is nearing its end. She is a famous author with a book that cannot be published during her lifetime. Therein lies the twist and the reader is left to his/her imagination! The story is slow moving at times and is more interesting through the war years, Briony's final confrontation of her own guilt and the destruction she has caused within her own family.
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