Book # 8 ATONEMENT By: Ian McEwan

When the film came out last year, I was dying to see it. But I had this awesome writing teacher who I loved, who told me not to even glance at the movie till I read the book. A year's gone by and I've finally gotten around to it.

Atonement is the story of a man (Robbie) who is falsely accused of rape and sent to prison by the testimony of a twelve year old girl (Briony).

The book is split into three parts. Part one takes place over the course of one day and night written in the omniscient third-person. We get the perspectives of every person present the day and night of Cecelia and Robbie's Tryst as well as the sexual assault.

Part two is three and a half years later from Robbie's point of view released from prison and fighting in WWII.

Part three is from Briony's point of view, now a nurse in London aware of her mistake years earlier.

I loved the use of omniscient POV, but I think a lot of whether or not someone likes this book is very much a matter of personal taste. While I can admire and appreciate an author's ability to create lyrical pages, I personal find them exhausting if they carry on for multiple chapters. Again, I may be in the minority on this one, but no matter how beautiful the writing is, as a reader, I'm waiting to get to the action of the story. I think this is why I found the second and third parts of the book more fascinating than the first. The first takes place over a hot, stuffy summer day and while McEwan did a great job at creating the atmosphere, the lazy quality of the day tends to make the story stagnant.

All that being said, the second and third parts are not only fascinating because of the plot, but the attention to detail that McEwan paid in his research of the time period is amazing. He also made powerful use of a time jump in the very last chapter of the book.

Despite my lukewarm feelings for part one, I think that this book (the ending in particular) is one of the most heartbreaking I've read in a very long time.

Grade: B-

*Time Magazine All-Time 100 Novels

*Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction 2002

*National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction 2002

*Santiago Prize for European Novel 2004

*100 Years, 100 Novels NPR

*Entertainment Weekly's: The New Classics
*Paste Magazine, Best Books of the Decade
*Telegraph, Best Books of the Decade
*AV Club, Best Books of the '00s