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.

I was really surprised at how much I disliked this book. It's one of those rarities where the movie was more enjoyable to me than the book. I couldn't even finish it because it just dragged on and on and the author was so redundant about the little girl and her fixation on her writings that it just bored me to tears.

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 was a great book for a book club. Lots of discussion especially about the second part of the story. The first part, told by a young girl, kind of drags but it really picks up in the second part and makes the story very readable.

This is a beautifully written book. Throughout the whole, despite the constant change in point of view, I found the details rich and the prose extraordinary. I could feel the heat of the day, the silk of the dress, everything.

It is not a fast read, but instead one to be enjoyed languidly and at leisure.

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