Atonement - Ian McEwan

Title: Atonement
Author: Ian McEwan
Genre: Historical fiction, ww2
Rating: 7/10
# pages: 376
Date read: January, 2009

Summary: We meet 13-year-old Briony Tallis in the summer of 1935, as she attempts to stage a production of her new drama The Trials of Arabella to welcome home her elder, idolised brother Leon. But she soon discovers that her cousins, the glamorous Lola and the twin boys Jackson and Pierrot, aren't up to the task, and directorial ambitions are abandoned as more interesting preoccupations come onto the scene. The charlady's son Robbie Turner appears to be forcing Briony's sister Cecilia to strip in the Fountain and sends her obscene letters; Leon has brought home a dim chocolate magnate keen for a war to promote his new "Army Amo" bar; and upstairs Briony's migraine-stricken mother Emily keeps tabs on the house from her bed. Soon, secrets emerge that change the lives of everyone present...

Review: It took me quite awhile to finish this book. A lot longer than I had expected. The book is split up into 3 parts and an epilogue. The first part was exceedingly boring and almost caused me to give up in despair. I got stubborn though, and stuck with it. And I'm glad I did, because part 2 and 3 were a lot better. Still, like somebody else expressed it, McEwan always feels like he takes about 20 pages to describe someone walking down a flight of stairs.

A lot of what I would have considered important plot elements got left out when the book moved from part to part, and was only alluded to later on, which made the plot somewhat disjointed, but it actually worked well. At first I felt like I was missing out on important plot points, but "what happened" is never as important as the consequences of it, and I guess this is a good way of showing that. I hated Briony at first, but came to pity her as the story moved on.

I'm not sure it's a book I'll read again, but it did end up being better than I had feared at first, even if not as good as I had expected or hoped for. I debated whether to rate it at 6 or 7, but after the first part, the story did end up grasping my attention, so I'll leave it at 7.

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