Rating: 
Summary: Surprising, and Surprisingly Good
Review: The plots of some books are easily categorized. Ones where the first paragraph lets you know what the arc of the book is going to be. It sounds interesting. You want to read it. You were right in your prediction. It gives you a comfortable feeling to have been right. And you don't have to think. This is not one of those books. At least in its most fundamental sense it is not.It seems to be at first. In 1935, on a country estate, a young girl with a vivid imagination tries to explain something that she sees. She does not understand what she has seen, but how many of us do at that age. She thinks she has seen something she has not. She is not puzzled, she is sure of what she has seen, and what it means, but she is wrong. That evening other events lead to misleading, but convincing, statements to the police. Then everyone must live with the consequences. Five years later, that now young woman must come to grips with what she has set in motion, and its consequences. Simple enough, and if that was all there was, it would be a good book. That's not all there is. The book goes further forward, to 1999. Events have played out. People have lived their lives. We have to accept truth, and the truth is what makes what would be a good book a great book. The difference, the ending, makes it a fantastic choice for those of us who hate to read a book only once!
Rating: 
Summary: Painful beyond belief
Review: This book has so much potential. It was an interesting idea, the characters were excellent, and McEwan is an excellent writer. Why, you may ask then, did I give it only two stars? The Answer is the detail. There is WAY to much of it. The paragraphs go on and on like some kind of infernal device designed to destory my love of reading and my sanity. This book could have been about 1/3 the length without changing the plot. It's like trying to read a bad combination of "The Scarlet letter" and "Pride and Prejudice". You get the amazingly long and boring descriptions of TSL and the pointless descriptions of upper class characters that are impossible to relate to. I don't know what McEwan was trying to prove when he wrote this book, but all he proved to me is that this book is filled with pretentious [***] that only arrogent snobs with too much time on their hands can enjoy. Those of us who deal in reality will not enjoy this novel
Rating:
Summary: What a great read!
Review: This book was a great reading experience. I was amazed,after finishing it, that it was a relatively short book because it seemed to be a work of both depth and width. I loved it and commend the author and thank him. It is a rare reading experience (I am tempted to say "these days") to have such rich interior and exterior 'worlds' created in a novel. Having just finished the book, I am wondering if Briony is a "bad seed" sort of girl/woman. Well, I will be thinking about this book for a while, but it will be a pleasure.
Rating:
Summary: Boring
Review: If I feel like I gained something, anything, from a book after I finish it, I usually say I liked the book. I gained NOTHING from reading this book. No character development, poor historical context and descriptions, boring predictable story. Sentences were structured well and the book had the potential for a decent story, that's why I gave it 2 instead of 1 star. Don't waste your time with this book.
Rating: 
Summary: very well-written
Review: Briony Tallis is a highly imaginative 13-year-old in the summer of 1935. She puts her imagination to work writing stories and plays and seeking out exciting and interesting things from her life to use in her stories. In her desperate need for some story-worthy excitement on which to base a story, Briony turns on her sisters love interest, Robbie Turner. Turning him into a violent maniacal murderer in her mind, she doesn't hesitate to accuse him of the rape of her 15-year-old cousin, even though she didn't clearly see the attacker. In the aftermath of her accusation, too young to give voice to any to any doubts she might have and too naïve to realize the consequences of her actions, she tells the police what she's convinced she saw, forever changing the lives of herself and her family. The book is divided into four parts. The first part is devoted to character development, the rape, the accusation. The second part is five years later, during the war. Robbie is fighting in France and Briony's sister, Cecilia, is a nurse in London. The third part focuses on Briony and her own nurses training, as well as her struggle to come to grips with her past actions. The final part is many decades later, when Briony is in her 70s, reflecting on the past. I thought this was a very well-written book. Something about the author's writing style really clicked with me. The story dragged at times, and I wasn't entirely satisfied with the ending, but it was definitely worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: "Atonement" was amazing
Review: I probably read one piece of modern fiction a year that is really, really good -- if that. This book was one of them. It was amazing. It begins with a terrible, but understandable, mistake, which the author calls a crime, committed by a naive, silly, self-important little girl, which ruins the lives of two people close to her. It is real, she is real, they are real. The war scenes that follow are as genuine and as intense as anything in "All Quiet on the Western Front" or "Journey to the End of the Night" - they convey the confusion, horror and futility of war, at least for the common soldier. I can't believe this man has not been to war - which, given his nationality and his apparent age, must be the case. The ending is startling, and, to me, terrible. It was worth my time. If you like the first chapter or two, it is well worth yours.
Rating:
Summary: Not everything is dependable-- but this book is great
Review: At their best novels can take readers to another place, another time, make them feel like they have another life, they are another person. But, still readers depend on what is written, it is like the writer has the power over us readers, over what we read, where we go to or even what we think. Some may say we are deceived, led to believe in what is written, or in what someone wants us to believe. In 'Atonement' Ian McEwan gets all this concept of readers/writers a goes a bit futher. A narrative is an entity over which neither the reader nor the writer has much power once it is published. At a low level, 'Atonement' is a coming-of-age story about a very imaginative girl named Briony. Frustrated and unable to understand the adult's world, she destroys a relationship, and later on her family. In the background there is the WWII, and its effect upon Brittain and its people. But digging depper into the novel we are taken to a higher level, where everything is more sophisticated. McEwan rises very pertinent questions about literature: how reliable is what you are reading? Do you believe in what the writer (anyone, not McEwan specifically) has written? How does he/she know what he/she is talking about? Does he/she have to have experience everything he/she is writing about? This is what makes 'Atonement' so complex and great, in my opinion. In a age of fast-food novels, it is a relief to read such a deep and complex novel in which the writer is not worried about souding cool, more than that, he wants us reader to think. He wants us to doubt everything --even what he has written. In a time when most writers wants to be the owner of the truth, 'Atonement' sheds a light showing that there is no such thing as an universal truth. Everything depends on who is telling, and what effects this person wants to cause in his/her audience. A highly recommended novel to 'advanced' readers, who like to think while they are reading a novel!
Rating: 
Summary: Much ado about nothing
Review: Truly an awful book. It is, by turns, turgidly written and so overwrought as to be unreadable. The characters are uniformly easy either to dislike or to be bored by. The plot is nothing short of silly, including a moronic "surprise" ending that adds nothing at all except to remind you how pointless, shallow, and empty the rest of the book is. The book is so poorly done that I almost suspected McEwan of intentionally carricaturing a certain kind of British novel of manners. A waste of time, money, ink, and paper.
Rating:
Summary: Pointless story
Review: I just finished reading this book and if I didn't have to read it for my book club, I never would have read to the end. Very boring, tedious and too much detail. I literally skipped 30-40 pages when Robbie was fighting in the war. I never felt like I got to know the characters. We know Briony commits a terrible crime and it's supposed to change her life. But the author doesn't show us how her life was changed. He jumps from when she's 18 to the age of 77 and we don't know how she lived her life in between. I was a bit angry as I read the story because I felt I was wasting my time. To me, the story was pointless and when I finished, I wondered, who cares?
Rating: 
Summary: revealing and deceiving....powerful novel about truth
Review: Ian McEwan delivers an interesting look at English life in the 30's. The story begins at the home of a well to do family. A series of events occur that will change the lives of all those involved in unbelievable ways. It is not so much the events , but they way they are viewed and linked together through the eyes and mind of a very young and naive girl and how she handles the situation.
This novel is also a powerful look at life during WWII for the soldiers and the nurses. The hardships and the medical capabilities that were available are excruciatingly clear.
Ian McEwan has created a vivid novel that tells a story that is both revealing and deceiving that pulls you rapidly along to the conclusion.
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