Rating: 
Summary: A sense of deja vu
Review: Like all good short story writers the author draws one rapidly into the narrative with a breathtaking opening chapter. McEwan writes sparingly and beautifully and maintains a level of tension and potential menace throughout.I was frequently reminded of The Child in Time.It too had the suspensful opening, the meditations on science etc.However in this book the author resists the temptation to go for a happy ending. One minor irritation was a glaring typo near the end where the name of the student girlfriend of the professor was spelled in two different ways on the same page.
Rating: 
Summary: Good but not great.
Review: In my opinion, a thriller is most effective when the reader feels sympathy or affection for the protagonists. In Enduring Love, I disliked Joe because of the pompous, academic style in which he narrates the story (as well as some of the things he does, which I judged to be not too bright). As for Clarissa, I thought she was superficially drawn and, when I got to the end, I was a bit disgusted to realize she'd made a pretty major mistake, which I won't describe because I don't want to ruin anything for those who haven't finished the book.Of course, I can appreciate a lot of things about Enduring Love. The opening chapter with the balloon was strange and terrific. And I liked the introduction, midway through the story, of the widow who believed she'd been betrayed by her heroic husband. The parallel between her lack of faith and Joe's was striking. But when it came to creating tension through the threat Parry represented to Joe and Clarissa's romantic bliss, I thought the author failed because Joe and Clarissa were such clods (and their one sex scene gave me the creeps more than anything the deranged stalker did).
Rating:
Summary: One to read on beach, train
Review: I think some of the reviewers have been a bit too harsh...But I love McEwan's short stories and looked forward to reading his novel...The story moves along at a pace that makes one believe that they are a faster reader than they really are!! It is intriguing but it doesn't tax the concentration.
Rating:
Summary: provocative, compelling, engrossing
Review: A fascinating and provocative look at madness and obsession, with many layers of veils and unveiling
Rating:
Summary: A Flawed Story
Review: Ian McEwan has written a very literate thriller chock full of scientific and psychological tidbits scattered throughout as well as two appendixes at the end almost offered up as evidence. We are even treated to his reading list, the sources he consulted for this novel, books by E.O. Wilson and Steven Pinker. All this erudition along with a beautifully fluid writing style does nothing to mask the characterization flaws in McEwan's story. The mentally ill gentleman who invades the lives of Joe and Clarissa is barely fleshed out at all. Instead we are given a bare-bones, clinical explanation of who he really is in Appendix I. Clarissa is one of the most poorly written female characters that I have come across in a book in a long time. This gal, a member of the academe, is just plain stupid. There is nothing credible put forth by the author to explain her lack of faith in her common-law husband's worst fears. Joe, intelligent and scientifically inclined, makes some stupid moves, moves that a careful reader would question. For example, if someone receives intrusive, perhaps vaguely threatening letters, who would only excise quotes from those letters and present those to the police? Why not just present the many letters in their entirety? Stupid, stupid. Yet Joe is presented as quite smart, smart enough to discourse about life and the human animal while he is defecating in the woods towards the book's end when he should be more worried about what he is going to do with that gun he just purchased from a ragtag group of hippie throwbacks. Drawing extensively from previous years' nonfiction bestsellers and using the information gleaned from them as wonderful insights into the human psyche is interesting up to a point, the very point where the stick figure characters can no longer support those lofty insights and collapse under the weight of their own inconsistencies.
Rating:
Summary: good read
Review: A terrifying book about obsession, and the impact of random events on our lives. A well-crafted novel that examines ordinary lives torn apart by a stranger. This will make you hold your spouse close at night.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't waste your time
Review: I totally agree with nelson's review of this book. I didn't like the narrator, didn't care what happened and found all the characters to be boring. I can't recommend a book where I feel nothing -- neither love nor hatred -- toward the characters.
Rating:
Summary: Good Read
Review: "Enduring Love" is well-written, and the story is unique. It's plot-driven, but not a page-turner. The lack of a highly sympathetic character decreased my reading pleasure. That Parry's syndrome involves his faith may be thematically important. Perhaps McEwan is hinting that like Parry, those with religious faith are investing energy in an object with no reciprocal interest.
Rating:
Summary: It's Fatal Attraction !
Review: It's clearly not as great as most reviewers said. Not because of the style : it is as usual straight and sharp. The opening chapter is memorable, the shooting scene in the restaurant vivid in the economy of details and words. Nevertheless, the story shows no big surprise to the reader : you get what you expect. The relationship, as complex as it may be, is déjà vu. Not to mention the highly predictable conclusion. Being an admirer of McEwan's work I advice you to read The Comfort of Strangers.
Rating:
Summary: Chilling rendition of misguided 'love.'
Review: This book is a disturbing depiction of what happens to an ordinary man after becoming involved in an extraordinary event. The main character is a witness to and participant in a terrifying event. The aftermath of this event is even more terrifying for him as he becomes the victim of a stalker. This person is no ordinary stalker but one that uses psychological as well as physical methods to make the life of his victim increasingly miserable. The main character is on a downward spiral that seems headed in only one direction - that of disaster for him and the person who has developed the unhealthy attachment towards him. It was a good read and not one that you could easily determine the final outcome. I'd give it a two thumbs up!!
| 
