Atonement by Ian McEwan

Atonement by Ian McEwan


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book has been on my shelf the longest. I bought it because it is a classic. I really like the way it was written. The story was intriguing and the characters very well-developed. You get to know each of the main characters by experiencing their lives. And the threads were all woven together at the end providing two possible endings to their story. My favorite character was Briony. She began as a precocious child dreaming of becoming an author who witnessed events that changed the rest of her life and the lives of her sister, Cecilia, and the son of their servant, Robbie. The three lives took completely separate paths different from those that had been planned. They spanned the years of World War II with Cecilia becoming a nurse and eventually Briony following in her footsteps. Robbie went to prison and then enlisted in the infantry deployed in France. The way McEwan wrote about their experiences was superb. You could really feel what they were feeling. And the ending was satisfying. I realize why it is considered a classic and McEwan is considered by Esquire "our era's Jane Austen."






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