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Amazon.co.uk Review
Atonement is Ian McEwan's ninth novel and his first since the Booker Prize-winning Amsterdam in 1998. But whereas Amsterdam was a slim, sleek piece, Atonement is a more sturdy, ambitious work, allowing McEwan more room to play, think and experiment.

We meet 13-year-old Briony Tallis in the summer of 1935, as she attempts to stage a production of her new drama The Trials of Arabella to welcome home her elder, idolised brother Leon. But she soon discovers that her cousins, the glamorous Lola and the twin boys Jackson and Pierrot, aren't up to the task, and directorial ambitions are abandoned as more interesting preoccupations come onto the scene. The charlady's son Robbie Turner appears to be forcing Briony's sister Cecilia to strip in the Fountain and sends her obscene letters; Leon has brought home a dim chocolate magnate keen for a war to promote his new "Army Amo" bar; and upstairs Briony's migraine-stricken mother Emily keeps tabs on the house from her bed. Soon, secrets emerge that change the lives of everyone present...

The interwar upper-middle-class setting of the book's long, masterfully sustained opening section might recall Virginia Woolf or Henry Green, but as we move forward--eventually to the turn of the 21st century--the novel's central concerns emerge, and McEwan's voice becomes clear, even personal. For at heart, Atonement is about the pleasures, pains and dangers of writing, and perhaps even more, about the challenge of controlling what readers make of your writing. McEwan shouldn't have any doubts about readers of Atonement: this is a thoughtful, provocative and at times moving book that will have readers applauding.--Alan Stewart --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Observer
‘The best thing he has ever written'

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Atonement by Ian McEwan  (32)  £4.07

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Atonement by Ian McEwan

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156 Reviews 5 star:  (70) 4 star:  (36) 3 star:  (26) 2 star:  (16) 1 star:  (8)           Average Customer Review (156 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   13 of 14 people found the following review helpful: Read This!, 23 Aug 2007 By  Jessica (UK) - See all my reviews I bought a copy of the book in anticipation for the up coming film as i would normally read historical novels from and earlier period. However, this book is fantastic! I love every character and felt like i knew them as well as friends. The books has a beautiful plot that will stay with me forever as well a being incredibly funny and true. Other reviewers have complained about the length of the first part but this for me was the best part of the book (along with the last part) every character is introduced and developed through different angles of the story which works really well. McEwan does a really good job of presenting entirely different charaters with integrity and passion, I can't wait to read another of his novels. The plots developes really well with twists and turns and the end is so fantastic you will have to read it again just incase you got it wrong! I stayed up till midnight and read it in one day - seriously read this you won't regret it!  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this)   24 of 27 people found the following review helpful: Rich, intricate and fascinating story, 10 April 2007 By  Linda Oskam "dutch-traveller" (Amsterdam Netherlands) - See all my reviews       A warm summer day in 1935: thirteen-year old Briony Tallis has written her first play in honour of her brother Leon returning home, but her niece and nephews are not up to performing it. While she is sulking in her room, she sees her sister Cecilia strip of her clothes and jump into a fountain in front of the cleaning lady's son Robbie. Her ample imagination turns this scene into something it is absolutely not and when at night something awful happens she interprets it completely wrong, an interpretation that will change the lifes of herself, Cecilia and Robbie. The second and third parts of the book are situated at the beginning of the war: the horrors of the evacuation of the British army at Dunkirk and the life at a London hospital. Finally in the fourth part, set in 1999, it becomes clear that this book is indeed one big atonement. This is an incredibly rich book and very smoothly written. It begged me to continue reading, even though the setting of the first part (a rich English family in the thirties) is not particularly interesting to me. The second and third parts very vividly describe the horrors of war and the fourth part glues the whole book together and on the other hand also provides an unexpected twist that puts part of the story in a whole new perspective. An absolute must-read.  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this)   71 of 82 people found the following review helpful: This one deserves the Booker -utterly brilliant, 2 Oct 2001 By  A. Craig (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews       This review is from: Atonement (Hardcover) Having finished ATONEMENT four days ago, I am still digesting and marvelling over it, but want to urge anyone interested in fiction to buy it. Those who have felt short-changed by McEwen in the past should forget the thin, shoddy stuff of Amsterdam and nauseating scenes of murder and sexual perversion in previous novels. This is a masterpiece of the kind you'd never have guessed he'd write. It plays with all the traditions of mistaken adolescent narrators and upper-class country houses, a la Go-Between and Henry James, and surpasses them. I do not think I've read a more beautiful or harrowing description of making love, of anguish or of what novelists can do to real people in any recent novel. McEwen has always been hugely talented and fascinating, but also frustrating in that his plots were never fully worked-out and his characters lacked passion so failed to involve the reader. None of these flaws are evident in ATONEMENT. I've read everything he's written since he first began, and hoped and waited for something as good as this.  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this) › See all 156 customer reviews...		Most Recent Customer Reviews