Reviews

“… a story was a form of telepathy. By means of inking symbols onto a page, she was able to send thoughts and feelings from her mind to her reader’s. It was a magical process, so commonplace that no one stopped to wonder at it. Reading a sentence and understanding it were the same thing; nothing lay between them. There was no gap during which the symbols were unraveled.”

I was deeply impressed by part one. Esquire magazine called McEwen “Our era’s Jane Austen.” After finishing part one I was agreeing with that statement. Parts two and three were still good, but not as strong. The writing was exquisite and the story captivating. There was a long super spicy passage that was too detailed in my opinion, but the story did hinge on it, so I suppose it was unavoidable. 🙈 The Jane Austen comparison does not stand. 4.5 stars.

emilymcgrath's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

adnaw06's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

aritrigupta's review against another edition

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2.0

I most certainly should've liked the book - separated lovers, drama, the cruelty of war, and what not.
But I submit humbly, that [a:Ian McEwan|2408|Ian McEwan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1404240951p2/2408.jpg] is not for me. This is his second book that I really put in an effort to finish, and it was truly just that; a whole lot of effort.
The entire part detailing the war, seemed a little pointless, actually, all the excruciating details of the mostly two dimensional characters seemed a bit of a waste, if at the end, it was all leading up to the way the book ended.
I wish I could like any part of it, but sadly, nothing in the book appealed all that much to me. It'll be quite a while before I take up another of his works.

scherezade's review against another edition

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This book is exquisitely written but I simply do not have the attention span right now to read it. May revisit later. Also if Briony has no haters I am DEAD.

hannis's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? It's complicated

5.0

buckyshuman's review against another edition

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2.5

The first 180 pages of the book were such a slog. The writing was pretentious, suffocating, boring, and slow. I actually got to the point where I was just skimming and taking one or two sentences from each paragraph for part 1. And despite not reading everything, I still could follow along and didn’t miss anything. If you love an entire chapter on a woman’s migraines, then this book is for you. I had to put it down and walk away. When I came back and got to part two – – it was much better than the first part. But frankly, I don’t think torturing myself for 180 pages was worth part two and part three. Also, I didn’t like the end. Granted it gave some explanation for why part one was written in an obnoxious style, but it doesn’t make it worth it. This might be one time when the movie was better than the book.

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