Paperback, 400 pages

English language

Published Nov. 19, 2005 by Vintage.

ISBN:
978-0-09-949704-2
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
493553820

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (6 reviews)

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE

On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecelia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down 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 not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl's imagination. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone. --back cover

40 editions

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. …

avatar for dommiz

rated it

4 stars
avatar for JesseLiberty

rated it

5 stars
avatar for Elsie431

rated it

1 star
avatar for musicalmara

rated it

3 stars

Subjects

  • British and irish fiction (fictional works by one author)
  • Fiction, family life
  • Fiction, psychological
  • Sisters, fiction
  • England, fiction

Lists