Saturday, September 09, 2006
book report: Atonement
Atonement
by Ian McEwan
This is another book I picked up after seeing it on a list of Booker Prize nominees. I'd also seen one of my commuter bus compatriots reading it last year. It opens with 13-year-old Briony writing a play called "The Trials of Arabella" which she plans to stage with her cousins for her family at their posh British estate. Briony's nerves are on edge as she imagines impressing her relatives and friends, and pleasing her distant mother who is in bed with a migraine. I found this first part of the book fairly painful, remembering the agony and self-consciousness that is being a 13-year-old girl.
I'm not going to try to recap the plot of the book - it unfolds as you read and it shouldn't be given away. I will say that Briony grows up to be a nurse and then a writer, and that the book spans many years and a great deal of history. McEwan is a very gifted writer, and I was inspired to read more of his books. But they are emotionally heavy and I can't read too many of them all at once.
by Ian McEwan
This is another book I picked up after seeing it on a list of Booker Prize nominees. I'd also seen one of my commuter bus compatriots reading it last year. It opens with 13-year-old Briony writing a play called "The Trials of Arabella" which she plans to stage with her cousins for her family at their posh British estate. Briony's nerves are on edge as she imagines impressing her relatives and friends, and pleasing her distant mother who is in bed with a migraine. I found this first part of the book fairly painful, remembering the agony and self-consciousness that is being a 13-year-old girl.
I'm not going to try to recap the plot of the book - it unfolds as you read and it shouldn't be given away. I will say that Briony grows up to be a nurse and then a writer, and that the book spans many years and a great deal of history. McEwan is a very gifted writer, and I was inspired to read more of his books. But they are emotionally heavy and I can't read too many of them all at once.
Labels: book reports
