Reviews - Saturday by Ian McEwan 4th (fourth) Edition [Paperback(2006)]

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689 reviews for:

Saturday by Ian McEwan 4th (fourth) Edition [Paperback(2006)]

read this for cbf and i actually really enjoyed it. i went into it knowing i was going to be writing an essay about class and privilege, so those themes really stuck out. i like mcewan's writing style a lot.

brenlibros's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging emotional informative mysterious reflective

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: N/A

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

lavitanuova's review against another edition

2.0

slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: N/A

billy_p's review against another edition

2.0

Dragged in the middle, but paid off decently enough. I think I had higher hopes for Ian McEwan. The language is not showy or florid, and the feat here from where I sit (and again, I have no qualification to perceive or remark on the merits of any literature, not having any education in the form beyond high school, and very little up through that point) is instead in the way the storytelling holds your attention, or at least regains it in the final 60 or so pages. I felt the wrap-up nearly (though perhaps not quite?) justified what seemed to be a tendency toward the didactic in spelling out Henry Perowne's measured materialist awe worldview earlier on. The build-up to the Iraq war serves as a backdrop (and there's a funny flashback where Perowne meets a confident yet mistaken Tony Blair in the years before 9/11), but I don't think it was particularly insightful as to The Way We Live Now, as some of the official reviews excerpted on the jacket suggest. In any case, it occupied my philistine sensibilities on the subway for a couple weeks, and for that I am grateful.

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...It might be worth recording just now that though I was a little underwhelmed with this book immediately after I read it, it has stayed with me in the months since as ringing some truths; perhaps for that reason it is a better work than I stated above.