Search - Atonement

Not sure about this book. It received so much hype that I feel a little disappointed. The beginning part of the book rambles on about the youngest of the girl's and sets the stage for her accusation. Although this set the stage for her over-active imagination, I felt that this was much too long and I lost interest numerous times. The book did hold interest at certain points but would then turn around to the drawn out portions. It seemed very detail oriented about things that were not major events in the story. Glad I finished it and was kinda OK but took a while to get through.

I was really set on reading this book. The beginning was slow, it definitely was hard to get into.. but once it picked up. It was a great novel. the fact that someones world can be turned upside just because of another persons view of an encounter.

This book won rave reviews for its literary style. The story takes place in Three sections with an Epilogue. It is slow moving in some places, but looking back it is fascinating to put all the pieces together from the author's viewpoint once it is complete.

The historical slant is also interesting as we see the war in Europe from differing perspectives. I believe the author has achieved something unusual in putting himself in the place of a 13 year old girl and moving us forward with the story.

I found it hard to get into and slow in some places, but very fast moving in others. I can see why it was made into a movie (which I understand is pretty faithful to the book) and also why Mr. Mcewan was acclaimed.

Basically, there were only about 100 pages of this book that I really enjoyed.
I felt that the first 100 pages could probably have been summed up in about 10 pages. I had to push through them, and I only did that because I've heard other people say the first part of this book can drag on.
I thought the author was WAY too wordy and descriptive. Descriptions are great, but I don't need full descriptions of every single little detail of everything throughout the entire book. It actually got to be annoying towards the end. There were times when I realized that I'd read at least 5 pages, and the story had gone nowhere because all I had read were pointless details (in my opinion).
It's not a bad book, and I did like parts of it, but for me, the parts I didn't enjoy outnumbered the parts I did enjoy.

Beautifully written study of how personal interpretations can color how we tell a story.

When I first started reading this book I thought the author was using too many words and not saying anything. It took awhile to get into. I've read books that use less words to say more. Overall it was a good story. However, I'm not in a hurry to read other books by this author.

A VERY slow go in the beginning, but fortunately picks up in the middle. If you are the type that likes Jane Austen's books more than the movie versions, read this book. If you like the movie versions better, maybe watch the movie instead. Can't say I've ever read a book quite like this one before. Saying anymore would probably give away too much, which is probably reason enough to read it.

This book reminded me of looking at a very beautiful painting - rich, descriptive language, but not a lot happens, and what does happen is in the imagination of one despicable little girl. I don't want to ruin the ending, but it's really not worth getting that far in the book anyway.

Clever indeed! The author patiently sculpted the narrative with beautiful imagery and sensual artistry on an English estate. I found it to be purposeful, from cover to cover. It stands out as a significant work of art compared to contemporary literature which is mostly superficial. There are penetrating themes that lie beneath the story lines: shame, guilt, cognitive development, truth, perception, social class, forbidden love, and more. I will savor this novel for years to come.

After 1/4 of the way through, I just couldn't do it. It dragged so much. Whine whine whine

Very very good. It had a great story line and came full circle at the end.

I found the writing style a bit overdone, too descriptive, and it caused my interest to wane. The story is probably a good one, but I couldn't get past the sometimes elaborate verbiage.

This book (and subsequent movie)received so much hype that I feel a little disappointed when I was reading it. The author just is so OVER detailed and just rambles on and on about that I had a VERY difficult time getting interested and staying interested, that I found myself skimming a lot of the time. Towards the end, it did get a wee bit better and I was beginning to be able to read and imagine and retain what was actually happening. I am one to not stop reading a book ... but I came VERY close several times. I haven't seen the movie, but I think that this might be one of those rare exceptions where the movie is better than the book.

I couldnt get into this book at all and then I saw the movie, which was also dissapointing.