`Impressive'

'One of the great unrequited love stories.'

"Atonement is a masterpiece...it is also an elegy to a time which, however volatile, still had certainties."

`This is a rare creature - a heartbreaker with genuine heart. Wonderful'

'tremendous... forced me to read some more of McEwan. I'm so glad I did because he has never disappointed'

Film tie-in edition

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.

Ian McEwan has written two collections of short stories and ten novels, including the award winning Saturday. He won the 1998 Booker Prize for his novel Amsterdam. He has also written several film scripts.

2008-08-25 Read before watching film!

Atonement is, overall, quite a good read.
However, it is very much an up-hill battle to really get into it, though once you are in, it engrosses you for around 60% of the time, so in this way is good.
There are several parts throughout the book that I personally had to skip, as they were very slow-moving and irrelevant to the story.
If you have seen the film, the book is even more hard work, as it takes so much time to get round to what actually happens in the story, so if you read it after having seen the film - good luck!