Rating: 
Summary: Engrossing story with an interesting angle
Review: I enjoyed this book quite a bit, especially the author's decision to use a male victim/protagonist and a male stalker. We never really know much about what makes this stalker tick, but that's the point. The victim doesn't pick his stalker. A couple of scenes were a bit far-fetched, but they also serve to break up some of slower parts of the book. Overall, this book is definitely worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: A book you won't soon forget
Review: I really liked this book. It gets off to a quick start with a tragic incident that shapes the rest of the story. The writing is beautiful and descriptive and you feel everything the characters are feeling. This is the second McEwan book I've read and look forward to reading his others.
Rating: 
Summary: A pretentious dinner party of a novel
Review: Insipid. A passion play for a culture that dreams of building shopping malls on the moon. Without strength or wisdom. Ponderous and crippled when it imagines itself tense and well-paced; banal and fatuous when it would have us believe it profound; sentimental, yet unmoving. Not only does form far outstrip meaning today, but meaning has been deleted - made an "unconcept" - as an uncomfortable reminder of more earnest, intellectual times. Here, meaning has been purged and replaced with a wicker puppet, and we're too dim to spot the difference. This is latte literature. We're given words for the eye, not the mind or heart. Cultural Newspeak, purged not only of ideas, but of the capacity even to frame ideas. This is a pretentious dinner party of a novel.
Rating:
Summary: wow
Review: This is only the second Ian McEwan book that I have read but it certainly won't be the last!!From the mesmerising first chapter, where I was literally breathless, until the very satisfying and surprising conclusion I could think of little else. My mind was constantly thinking of possibilities that could have caused the dilemmas experienced by the extremely lifelike characters. McEwan has a way of drawing the reader in to become a silent bystander as the story unfolds. His descriptions are so realistic that at times I would re-read his phrases just for sheer enjoyment. This is a book to be savoured..not a fast read but highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Worth owning for Chapter 1 alone
Review: Blessed with what is perhaps the finest first chapter ever written - in terms of the tension and expectation it creates, and the intellectual ground it covers - it might have been better if McEwan had left it there. The remainder of this novel is good, but it never quite reaches the same pitch. Ostensibly this is a thriller about a man pursued by an evangelical Christian with an increasingly violent obsession. That's good enough material for any novel, but this is McEwan so we know it's going to be about more than just that. And in that regard it doesn't disappoint: "Enduring Love" turns out to be an exploration of science, religion, causation, perception, memory and, of course, love. The plot escalates at the pace of a thriller, but it doesn't read like one. It's almost like collection of meditations on various topics, played out by the same characters. It's highly readable, but ultimately it lacks the satisfying sense of unity which distinguishes McEwan's other work.
Rating: 
Summary: The power of antecedent causes.
Review: This being my third McEwan book, I would have to say it is the best so far. And I've settled on a term I would use to summarize what McEwan does with his writing. He makes us consider antecedent causes. Makes you think about "what went before." This happened because of this, that happened because of that, and so on. It all fits so tightly in retrospect. Results or consequences escalate in a measure that seems impossible to predict. All good authors do this to some extent, I mean, that's what "plot" is all about... but McEwan could teach others to do it better!
With Black Dogs it is the incident with the vicious dogs on the path. With Amsterdam a lot of the consequences have to do with the seemingly innocuous pact made between the two men.
Here in Enduring Love, this ballooning accident sets in motion events that no-one (especially Joe or his wife Clarissa)would have ever been able to predict. In a MILLION years. This is truly a brilliant book about fanatical obsession and the insidious way that a loving relationship can be infiltrated and ruined by forces from outside of that relationship. This happened in a more roundabout way in the other two books I've mentioned, but here in Enduring Love it's right up front. Wow, it's just an amazing book. I unreservedly recommend Enduring Love to anyone who likes a good psychological thriller... something you just can't put down for too long.
And thanks to McEwan's book, if I'm ever part of an impromptu hot-air balloon rescue crew, I will be sure to NOT smile at any of my team members!
Rating:
Summary: Contemporary Masterpiece
Review: One one level, at least, McEwan descends to that of the ordinary: the mere plebian. This is the first book of his I have read where one of the main characters isn't a busom buddy or lover or former lover of some exhaltingly talented and ambitious MP or cabinet minister. The routine, even mundane middle-class existence represented chiefly by Joycean literature is often underappreciated. Joe's rational(?) narration is very everyman. The detailing of the balloon accident is exquisite and presents the role of fate and happen-chance in tragedy. ... Also, the hypothetical argument presented on pages 170-171 alone makes this worth reading.In my opinion this is the best McEwan novel I have read and one of the very best novels I've read that is set in the present day. Maybe the best. This is only my second 5 Star book.
Rating:
Summary: A Narrative of Science, Religion and Obsession
Review: I first read Ian McEwan in 1976. I had just arrived in Ireland for a year of study and picked up an inexpensive Picador paperback edition of his first collection of stories, "First Love, Last Rites." I still have that paperback, its pages dog-eared and fragile, and I re-read it from time-to-time. After that first encounter, I became a McEwan "fan," enraptured by his dark, edgy, disturbing, psychologically obsessive narratives. "Enduring Love", published more than twenty years after that first collection of stories, is different from his earliest writing in the sense that its narrative turns around a more conventional, albeit still psychologically driven and bizarre, set of circumstances. As many reviewers have commented, the first chapter of "Enduring Love" is a compelling page-turner. Joe and Clarissa, long-time lovers, are setting up a picnic under a tree on the edge of a wide expanse of field. Clarissa, a Keats scholar, has just returned from an extended research trip to Rome and the picnic is an occasion for them to celebrate their reunion. In Joe's first person narrative: "The beginning is simple to mark. We were in sunlight under a turkey oak, partly protected from a strong, gusty wind. I was kneeling on the grass with a corkscrew in my hand, and Clarissa was passing me the bottle-a 1987 Daumas Gassac. This was the moment, this was the pinprick on the time map: I was stretching out my hand, and as the cool neck and the black foil touched my palm, we heard a man's shout. We turned and looked across the field and saw the danger." And what was the danger? Joe and Clarissa see a hot air balloon pulling away from the ground, a young boy in the basket of the balloon while an older man, his companion, struggles desperately to hold onto the balloon, to keep it tethered to the ground in the face of gusty winds. Soon, Joe is running across the field to help, along with three other men. It is a moment in time, "the pinprick on the time map," that Joe explores obsessively, examining it, turning it, over and over, trying to understand how such an instant can change an entire life. Joe and the three other men soon catch up to the balloon, the four of them, together with the boy's older companion, struggling to hold the balloon down, to keep it from blowing off with the young boy as scared passenger. It becomes apparent, however, that their efforts are failing, the balloon starting to rise higher, the four men holding on, each of them facing grave physical danger and a powerful moral dilemma. Each must decide whether to continue to hold on, running the risk that if the others do not then he will face near certain death from falling. As Joe later relates, looking back on that moment, "I didn't know, nor have I ever discovered, who let go first. I am not prepared to accept that it was me. What is certain is that if we had not broken ranks, our collective weight would have brought the balloon to earth a few seconds later as the gust subsided." Thus begins "Enduring Love", the first chapter seemingly narrating an event and a moral conundrum that immediately captures the reader, leading him to believe that the rest of the novel will explore how this event affects the lives of Joe and Clarissa and the rest of the book's characters. However, in typical McEwan fashion, the plot takes a much different turn. What begins as a tragic event that elicits moral ponderings veers into a narrative of science, religion and psychological obsession. Joe Rose encounters one of the other would-be rescuers, Jed Parry, while standing in the field after their ill-starred rescue attempt. Parry, an apparently religious fanatic, sees deep meaning in his time-bound encounter with Joe. He becomes obsessed with Joe, stalking him and, eventually, threatening Joe's relationship with Clarissa and Joe's very well-being. Parry suffers from de Clerambault's syndrome, a type of homo-erotic obsession with religious overtones. As the scientific appendix to the novel notes, "this is indeed a most lasting form of love, often terminated only by the death of the patient." "Enduring Love" thus begins by posing a moral dilemma, but soon evolves into a compelling novel of deviant psychological obsession, of conflict between religion and science, and of a deep, introspective examination of how a loving relationship can soon unravel in the face of threats from the outside. It is a thought-provoking novel, albeit one which at times seems somewhat lacking in feeling, the reader (at least this reader) having difficulty identifying with the often clinical coldness of Joe's first person narration. While the tone of Joe's narration may be intentional, McEwan intending to write in a voice that reflects the unfeeling tone of Joe's deep-seated scientific rationalism, the narrative never quite rings true to life. "Enduring Love" is, nonetheless, a fascinating and worthwhile novel that gives the reader much to ponder.
Rating:
Summary: Rewarding
Review: I was given this novel to read for english class and found it a little difficult to get into in the beginning. However, once I had faught my way through the first 8 pages I was well and truly hooked. I had to force myself to look at the line I was reading and not skim down the page to see what happens next. Joe Rose is a very complexe but likeable guy whos views of the world you can identify with and Jed Parry? A very scary thought! The meeting and it consequences so totally believable and the ending? A complete shock! Fight your way through the first few pages of this novel and you will be very glad that you did.
Rating:
Summary: rave reviews for this book?
Review: I started this book with an open mind but just could not finish it. It is one of the worst books that I've ever picked up. How did people get past the ridiculous premise? I found myself (unbelievably) laughing through most of the beginning. In addition, there's nothing particularly engaging or noteworthy about McEwan's writing. For those who are looking for a well-written, thoughtful novel, I would think twice about this book.
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