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  • This one was so-so. I haven't seen the movie yet. The book was good, it was kind of hard to get into. It was slow moving at the start, and then it picked up again.

    

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• ― Miraclesmommadesigns said on Sep 19, 2008 about the Mass Market Paperback edition| Add your feedback

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  • Atonement

  • A well-written, gripping tale of love, innocence, betrayal, and war with a surprise hook at the end.

    

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• ― Readingrat said on Aug 11, 2008 about the Hardcover edition| Add your feedback

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• ― Becky said on Nov 9, 2008 about the Hardcover edition| Add your feedback

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  • Made the mistake of watching the movie first. Is far too similar to the movie to warrant reading it. It would be like reading it twice.

    

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• ― Charley Snipe said on Oct 20, 2008 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

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  • I was rather excited to read this book, but felt somewhat disappointed after reading it. There's a good message in the book, but it is kind of burried. I had a hard time getting through the begining; I found it to be a little slow. The character didn't really jump off the page at me. Although Ian Mc ... Continue

    I was rather excited to read this book, but felt somewhat disappointed after reading it. There's a good message in the book, but it is kind of burried. I had a hard time getting through the begining; I found it to be a little slow. The character didn't really jump off the page at me. Although Ian McEwan is a master with the English language, I found a lot of emotion left out of this book. I just didn't really connect with any of the characters, but it was still a decent read. Sad to say this is the first time I might actually enjoy the movie better than the book.

    

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• ― Terror said on Apr 11, 2008 about the Mass Market Paperback edition| Add your feedback

The novel opens on a sweltering summer day in 1935 at the Tallis family’s mansion in the Surrey countryside. Thirteen-year-old Briony has written a play in honor of the visit of her adored older brother Leon; other guests include her three young cousins -- refugees from their parent’s marital breakup -- Leon’s friend Paul Marshall, the manufacturer of a chocolate bar called “Amo” that soldiers will be able to carry into war, and Robbie Turner, the son of the family charlady whose brilliantly successful college career has been funded by Mr. Tallis. Jack Tallis is absent from the gathering; he spends most of his time in London at the War Ministry and with his mistress. His wife Emily is a semi-invalid, nursing chronic migraine headaches. Their elder daughter Cecilia is also present; she has just graduated from Cambridge and is at home for the summer, restless and yearning for her life to really begin. Rehearsals for Briony’s play aren’t going well; her cousin Lola has stolen the starring role, the twin boys can’t speak the lines properly, and Briony suddenly realizes that her destiny is to be a novelist, not a dramatist.

In the midst of the long hot afternoon, Briony happens to be watching from a window when Cecilia strips off her clothes and plunges into the fountain on the lawn as Robbie looks on. Later that evening, Briony thinks she sees Robbie attacking Cecilia in the library, she reads a note meant for Cecilia, her cousin Lola is sexually assaulted, and she makes an accusation that she will repent for the rest of her life.

The next two parts of Atonement shift to the spring of 1940 as Hitler’s forces are sweeping across the Low Countries and into France. Robbie Turner, wounded, joins the disastrous British retreat to Dunkirk. Instead of going up to Cambridge to begin her studies, Briony has become a nurse in one of London’s military hospitals. The fourth and final section takes place in 1999, as Briony celebrates her 77th birthday with the completion of a book about the events of 1935 and 1940, a novel called Atonement.

In its broad historical framework Atonement is a departure from McEwan’s earlier work, and he loads the story with an emotional intensity and a gripping plot reminiscent of the best nineteenth-century fiction. Brilliant and utterly enthralling in its depiction of childhood, love and war, England and class, the novel is a profoundly moving exploration of shame and forgiveness and the difficulty of absolution.

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Margin notes of this book

• fiction1001btrbydaugustBooks I Want to ReadFromBookmoochToBookmooch1001 books to read before you dieIan McEwanguiltinnocence
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