Book Review

Today I finally finished reading Atonement by Ian McEwan.  It it on the All TIME 100 Novels List, one of the list I've chosen to read 15 book from.

Description from TIME:

"A magnificent deception. Briony Tallis, the intricate English girl at the center of Atonement, is a budding writer. At the age of 13 she believes that through her powers of invention and language, "an unruly world could be made just so." In a complicated way, she turns out to be right, but only after she turns out to be catastrophically wrong. In the first half of the book, she passionately misunderstands a series of events she witnesses on a summer day in 1935, which leads her to formulate a lie that ruins the lives of her older sister Cecilia and Cecilia's lover Robbie. So much for the virtues of the imagination. But McEwan is crafty. Even as he shows us the deadly force of storytelling, he demonstrates its beguilements on every page. Then he leads us to a surprise ending in which the power of fiction, which has been used to undo lives, is used again to make heartbroken amends."

One of my favorite things to do is read book that are being made into movie. Reading the book first and then heading to the theater to see how it comes to life on the big screen. With Atonement, I actually saw the movie several years ago and am just now getting around to reading the book. I had a copy from a book sale a while back and was excited about finally getting to read it.

I have to admit, I was bored with majority of the book. It felt like I was swimming in unnecessary works and descriptions. But towards the end it pick up and got better. It was very sad and depressing, but the ending made it worth reading, it was still a hard book to get though.