Heather reviewed Atonement by Ian McEwan
Review of 'Atonement' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
A fantastic book.
Hardcover, 351 pages
English language
Published April 19, 2002 by Nan A. Talese | Doubleday.
4 stars
(6 reviews)
On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her older sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching Cecilia is their housekeeper's son Robbie Turner, a childhood friend who, along with Briony's sister, has recently graduated from Cambridge.
By the end of that day the lives of all three will have been changed forever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had never before dared to approach and will have become victims of the younger girls scheming imagination. And Briony will have committed a dreadful crime, the guilt from which will color her entire life.
In each of his novels Ian McEwan has brilliantly drawn his reader into the intimate lives and situations of his characters. But never before has he worked with so large a canvas: In Atonement he takes the …
On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her older sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching Cecilia is their housekeeper's son Robbie Turner, a childhood friend who, along with Briony's sister, has recently graduated from Cambridge.
By the end of that day the lives of all three will have been changed forever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had never before dared to approach and will have become victims of the younger girls scheming imagination. And Briony will have committed a dreadful crime, the guilt from which will color her entire life.
In each of his novels Ian McEwan has brilliantly drawn his reader into the intimate lives and situations of his characters. But never before has he worked with so large a canvas: In Atonement he takes the reader from a manor house in England in 1935 to the retreat from Dunkirk in 1941; from the London's World War II military hospitals to a reunion of the Tallis clan in 1999. --front flap
crabbygirl reviewed Atonement by Ian McEwan
Review of 'Atonement' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
[guessing at the star rating / mining my old FB notes now that they are almost impossible to find]
would you believe my 3rd time reading it?! my bookclub choose it, and it's such a fine piece of work, i didn't want to simply remember it when we discussed it - i wanted it to be fresh.
i've not always enjoyed this author - but this book has virutally no throwaway lines or plot points. even the most off-handed comment is so true and bears a moment's wondering. cecilia is home from college - entirely transformed - but her family doesn't see her so, with their former expectations of her so habitual and strong.
briony is a whirlwind of drama at the age of 13, envisioning of the world removed from herself - like the novellas she writes - one moment, and impetutously throwing herself into the fray, the next. …
[guessing at the star rating / mining my old FB notes now that they are almost impossible to find]
would you believe my 3rd time reading it?! my bookclub choose it, and it's such a fine piece of work, i didn't want to simply remember it when we discussed it - i wanted it to be fresh.
i've not always enjoyed this author - but this book has virutally no throwaway lines or plot points. even the most off-handed comment is so true and bears a moment's wondering. cecilia is home from college - entirely transformed - but her family doesn't see her so, with their former expectations of her so habitual and strong.
briony is a whirlwind of drama at the age of 13, envisioning of the world removed from herself - like the novellas she writes - one moment, and impetutously throwing herself into the fray, the next.
you aren't supposed to love the story - it's a tragedy layered on tragedy. but the masterful telling of it, the utterly real characters and motivations for their actions makes it one of my alltime favorites.
this is a rare case when the movie (by the same name) actually strengthened the book. and it makes you want to read the book again, then see the movie again, then the book....
Subjects
- Teenage girls -- Fiction
- Country life -- Fiction
- Ex-convicts -- Fiction
- Sisters -- Fiction
- Guilt -- Fiction
- England -- Fiction