Atonement

Ian McEwan

On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl's imagination. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.

Review by Jessica (141007) Rating (9/10)

Review by Jessica
The atmosphere in the years before the war began in 1939 is brilliantly evoked in this wonderfully crafted novel. The build up of tension and suspense is sometimes unbearable. You know as soon as you begin reading the first page that something momentous is about to happen and you are not disappointed. Three lives will have been changed forever.
We learn about each person and their character through their own words and thoughts. Guilt, anger and shame twist like a thread throughout this story which is surely Ian McEwan’s best.

Briony at 13 years old with a very vivid imagination writes a play to impress her brother and the cousins from the North who are arriving that day. They are all to take part in the play but before that can happen Briony sees something from her window involving her older sister Cecelia and a man. Why does she dive into the lake and is it the son of their cleaning lady. Briony’s imagination runs riot.

Brother Leon arrives with his friend Paul Marshall who manufactures chocolate bars hoping if the war begins he will make a fortune because the soldiers will have them in their kit bag. Emily, the Mother suffers from migraine and the author’s description of this is so amazing and believable. A letter triggers of a train of events that are unstoppable with repercussions that make this novel the fabulous story it is.

The tale moves on into the war years and Dunkirk with all the preparations in England for the arrival of the survivors. Briony is now a probationer nurse and is thrown in at the deep end.

A wedding and a meeting follow but you will you have to read on to know the outcome in this outstanding novel. The ending I can say I was not prepared for at all. You will not be able to put the book down until you have completed it. Can’t wait to see if the film is as good
Jessica (14th October 2007)