Rating: 
Summary: kids will be kids
Review: perhaps the only novel w/ cement as a plot device but it works well as the substance that alienates a father from his son and unites the children after the parents die. the father dies from a heart attack while constructing the cement garden and later the four children use the extra cement to bury their mother in the basement. they go on w/ their lives in the big old house, drawing closer and closer in their own dark world, which eventually becomes incestual. a fascinating read, and i wonder if the fact that mcewan has four children is significant?
Rating: 
Summary: a dark story but a compelling read
Review: reading this book was like driving past a car crash , you don't want to look , afraid of what you might see but you look anyway. the glimpses are occasionally grotesque... actually entirely grotesque.. unless you count the descriptions of julies sun worship and athletic body putting some light into the darkness.
ok the good news: its short, written in a straightforward way, good ambiance and mood, strong imagery and a thrilling read, those that like reading of a persons thoughts and feelings rather then straight narrative/dialogue will like the style
the bad news: we only get the boys perspective of his mothers death - i would have liked some character development of the sisters - as for derek, the only point of his presence was to upset the household, more could have been done with this character. Still, if you like your novels on the dark side this one is definately for you.
Rating:
Summary: VERY DISTURBING
Review: The "Cement Garden"descibes the process that steadily isolates four children, so that there can be no way them of returning to normal life. The author's points are very direct and easy to understand. I would want to read this book more than once! and eah time i read it..it gets more interesting!
Rating:
Summary: Loved it but too predictable
Review: The attention to detail was great. Ian really knows how to get inside a teenage boy's head. Somewhat un-realistic, however, and totally predictable.The scene at the end when the authorities come is very haunting.
Rating: 
Summary: CEMENT TOO HEAVY TO RESIST
Review: The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan is a book that captures its reader from the starting gate, "I did not kill my father...", and never lets up until it's climactic ending. Four siblings living in a deteriorating environment are left orphans in a large house. The children subsequently take on the roles of a modified "nuclear family", with Julie and Jack as the parents, and Tom and Sue as the offspring. The father's passing is barely noticed, but the mother's demise leaves a strong impression upon the children. So strong is the attachment that like Norman Bates in PSYCHO they refuse to part with the body which they have entombed in cement within the house. The book also contains numerous metaphors. The decay of the outside neighborhood, for example, reflects the crumbling family life which occurrs within the house. The cement which entombs the mother, likewise surrounds the house and its occupants. These and many others lend deeper meaning to the story and are sprinkled throughout the book. The book also has elements of other great fiction, namely Lord of The Flies, and Catcher In The Rye. The deterioration of accepted behavior resulting from the loss of order, and the despair and loneliness of daily events as seen through the eyes of an adolescent are blended together to yield a potent stew.
The book is short in length but is very long on impact.
Rating:
Summary: CEMENT TOO HEAVY TO RESIST
Review: The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan is a book that captures its reader from the starting gate, "I did not kill my father...", and never lets up until it's climactic ending. Four siblings living in a deteriorating environment are left orphans in a large house. The children subsequently take on the roles of a modified "nuclear family", with Julie and Jack as the parents, and Tom and Sue as the offspring. The father's passing is barely noticed, but the mother's demise leaves a strong impression upon the children. So strong is the attachment that like Norman Bates in PSYCHO they refuse to part with the body which they have entombed in cement within the house. The book also contains numerous metaphors. The decay of the outside neighborhood, for example, reflects the crumbling family life which occurrs within the house. The cement which entombs the mother, likewise surrounds the house and its occupants. These and many others lend deeper meaning to the story and are sprinkled throughout the book. The book also has elements of other great fiction, namely Lord of The Flies, and Catcher In The Rye. The deterioration of accepted behavior resulting from the loss of order, and the despair and loneliness of daily events as seen through the eyes of an adolescent are blended together to yield a potent stew.
The book is short in length but is very long on impact.
Rating:
Summary: The Psychological Meaning of Social Normalcy
Review: THE CEMENT GARDEN is the gripping story of a small family, isolated from society, and struggling with events for which society maintains strict rules. It is a well-crafted reflection on society and normalcy. It is technically well-written, poetic and confident in tone, a superb psychological portrait. Four children, who previously lost their father, now tend their ailing mother, whom they will soon lose as well. Two boys and two girls (two young and two teenaged), they attend school as normal, but the family has always been isolated. The mother hardly let them leave the house when she was alive, so they do not know how to handle her body now that she's died, and take it to the basement. As a subplot, the older boy and girl explore sexuality with each other, in a candid scene. Suprisingly, we are not bothered by these activities as such. McEwan's psychological portraits are convincing, and his characters seem entirely normal. His writing skill is evident when one realizes the sympathy with which these four characters are drawn. The novel's tension comes unexpectedly from a banal source: The older girl has a boyfriend, a conventional person, but McEwan has convinced us the family is normal, so to us, the boyfriend is an outsider. How will the boyfriend act? Will he discover the secret? If so, will he reveal it? Will he become an insider, will he clean up the mess and help the four become legitimate, will he blackmail them, or will he tell society and let them be punished as normal? If the latter, will society punish them harshly? At the end, one wonders how horrible the youth really were, even if they lived outside social norms. What is the line between innocently mistaken and socially unacceptable? The novel is an excellent exploration of this question, and the inquisitive reader may judge this matter for themself. A minor complaint: I have heard the movie omits the book's last paragraph, which I think was wise. The author might have witheld the explicit conclusion, forcing the reader to guess what might happen. This does not detract from the book's quality in any way, nor the reader's ability to consider the matter in their own mind, on their own.
Rating:
Summary: Calm and cool with a jolt shot through it
Review: The main focus of this book is really quite eerie and yet there is a definite calm and direction to the books central characters, a young brother and sister. By the end of 'The Cement Garden' nothing seemed odd to me; it was as it should be with a light breeze blowing through it.
Rating:
Summary: Gets under your skin
Review: The material is so dark, so nonchalantly sinister, that one would expect it to be difficult to read. On the contrary, because McEwan is so brilliantly adept with character, the book reads like a page-turner. This is an amazing feat. McEwan shows us all of the narcissism and moral lapses of troubled teenagers, yet still somehow makes them lovable. Jack, Julie, Sue, and Tom are some of the most vividly rendered characters in fiction. Though McEwan's prose continued to improve in the years after THE CEMENT GARDEN, culminating with ATONEMENT, he had this basic and phenomenal ability even with his first book. It's fascinating to read such a talented debut after seeing his other works....
Rating:
Summary: A good one
Review: This book is gripping merely for the reason that it is greatly different to most other books you open. It is dark, sick, twisted and very wierd without the regular huge adventourous storyline with all the in-your-face morals that the author throws in. It is an unusual short novel that makes good read and is a nice change from the 'normal' books.
| 
