Ian McEwan
2001
Around 370 pages
Thank heavens for Ian McEwan. Of course, this novel is so depressing that it's hardly a cheerful pick me up, but I needed something moving that didn't include graphic scenes of sexual violence and sympathetic portrayals of child rapists. So in many ways, this was just what the doctor ordered.
In the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony misunderstands the relationship between her older sister Cecilia and Robbie, the son of her upper-class family's housekeeper. This misunderstanding has dire consequences for all of their lives, and it's a bad time to be a young person in England anyway.
It can be so frustrating when the characters in a story believe something that the reader knows is not true, that it can ruin the entire experience. But McEwan manages the perspectives and characters so masterfully that I never felt that way. He perfectly captures how catastrophes like this unfold. Just like in real life, so many little things have to go wrong for some tragedies to occur that it's hard not to feel like the fates are against you.
Loved the film adaptation as well, Joe Wright should adapt all my favorite novels.
RATING: *****
Interesting Facts:
Adapted to film in 2007.
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
UP NEXT: Schooling by Heather McGowan
UP NEXT: Schooling by Heather McGowan
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