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3.34 AVERAGE
3.34 AVERAGE
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
one star if not for the final chapter. quite a turnaround. also, post-war british spy stories = boring.
It’s hard to put into words how best to describe my reaction to Sweet Tooth. The best place to start is at the beginning, the introduction of Serena Frome (rhymes with plume) was interesting and a great introduction to the book. However that’s where I have to draw the line, the book starts to turn into a spitting out of facts for me which in all honesty I didn’t understand.
McEwan weaves a rather spastic tapestry in my view. I will not say that it wasn’t written well or unprofessionally. McEwan has a way with words that I will say drew me in at times. The “sudden” additions of short stories by a character introduced halfway through the book I found to be slightly misleading if not boring and confusing. Serena had to be engrossed to fall in love with Tom. I understand that, but was it necessary to drag the reader in with her? We weren’t meant to fall in love with him she was.
Character development I thought was strong; we get a good sense of Serena and her upbringing early on. Her decisions are interesting from her secret affair with Tony to her “pursuit” of Max to her eventual infatuation with Tom. Shirley was a cute character who I suppose was to be Serena’s foil. A strong opinionated girl who constantly wrote in a little notebook until her eventual sacking gets her to leave and live her dream of being a writer.
Tom was another person that I thought was developed well if not a tiny bit over Serena. It’s only later that I found out that he shares quite a few traits with McEwan. Suddenly my feelings become much more opinionated. Many people have said that Dan Brown tries to make his titular character of Robert Langdon to share many of his traits, and that maybe in reality he wishes himself to share these adventures with smart sexy women.
Can I accuse another man of doing the same? Why not, could it be that McEwan wanted this sort of adventure for himself? Doesn’t everyone? To sidestep my line of thinking that he is a sad old man, I finally just concentrated on the final chapter of the book: a well written letter by a man who had stumbled into the truth with the help of a whiny emasculated man, in the form of Max.
Oh Max, the only way you could breach the arranged marriage your mommy and daddy made for you was to get drunk and blame it on another woman. The whole “wanting what you can’t have” bit worked well for this. It made perfect sense to make him the leak, considering he was the “injured” party of the situation. It made him all the more bitchy and pathetic. I wish I could know what happened to him in the end. Did he get sacked? Did I miss that part of the story? Also the dialogue between Serena and the heads of Sweet Tooth was perfect, the ideology of that time frame in terms of their opinion of women taking a larger role in MI5 was well written.
Back to the letter, which explained away much of my frustration and annoyance, but at the same time added to it. If the letter was to show us that Tom was the actual narrator in the guise of Serena, then readers of his previous novel Atonement might be a little insulted by the same trick being pulled twice. If I’m to be perfectly honest, I was insulted and this is my first McEwan novel. The additions of the short stories had me believe that Tom was a little egotistical, as well as adding the debriefings where the information sort of dragged. I didn’t find it interesting, or necessary.
I’m the kind of reader that is comfortable walking out of his comfort zone to see what he is missing in the literary world. I was beginning to get as bored as Serena, to the point where I just began to skip paragraphs all together. A habit I thought I kicked back in middle school.
By the end I found myself hating most of the characters with the exception of the ones we met in the first chapter. I felt that Serena may have been screwed the minute that whole towel situation was happening with her first college boyfriend.
Did I hate it? No. Did I like it? No. Am I confused and somewhere in the middle? Yes, very much. I have a tendency of removing books I don’t like from my bookshelf and shipping them off to Amazon. So why can’t I part from this book? Is there an unspoken connection that I have to it? Can it be discovered and discerned within this review? Doubt it, I’ve decided to keep it for a while and return to it once a proper time has passed.
The verdict: I give it a three out of five. Why? Because even though I give it a lot of humming and hawing I consider it to be well written. The story has an interesting premise and it could work if certain things were ignored. The “twist” was stale, no ah-ha moment behind it. Unfortunate but true, Sweet Tooth is readable but for me not a great page turner.
McEwan weaves a rather spastic tapestry in my view. I will not say that it wasn’t written well or unprofessionally. McEwan has a way with words that I will say drew me in at times. The “sudden” additions of short stories by a character introduced halfway through the book I found to be slightly misleading if not boring and confusing. Serena had to be engrossed to fall in love with Tom. I understand that, but was it necessary to drag the reader in with her? We weren’t meant to fall in love with him she was.
Character development I thought was strong; we get a good sense of Serena and her upbringing early on. Her decisions are interesting from her secret affair with Tony to her “pursuit” of Max to her eventual infatuation with Tom. Shirley was a cute character who I suppose was to be Serena’s foil. A strong opinionated girl who constantly wrote in a little notebook until her eventual sacking gets her to leave and live her dream of being a writer.
Tom was another person that I thought was developed well if not a tiny bit over Serena. It’s only later that I found out that he shares quite a few traits with McEwan. Suddenly my feelings become much more opinionated. Many people have said that Dan Brown tries to make his titular character of Robert Langdon to share many of his traits, and that maybe in reality he wishes himself to share these adventures with smart sexy women.
Can I accuse another man of doing the same? Why not, could it be that McEwan wanted this sort of adventure for himself? Doesn’t everyone? To sidestep my line of thinking that he is a sad old man, I finally just concentrated on the final chapter of the book: a well written letter by a man who had stumbled into the truth with the help of a whiny emasculated man, in the form of Max.
Oh Max, the only way you could breach the arranged marriage your mommy and daddy made for you was to get drunk and blame it on another woman. The whole “wanting what you can’t have” bit worked well for this. It made perfect sense to make him the leak, considering he was the “injured” party of the situation. It made him all the more bitchy and pathetic. I wish I could know what happened to him in the end. Did he get sacked? Did I miss that part of the story? Also the dialogue between Serena and the heads of Sweet Tooth was perfect, the ideology of that time frame in terms of their opinion of women taking a larger role in MI5 was well written.
Back to the letter, which explained away much of my frustration and annoyance, but at the same time added to it. If the letter was to show us that Tom was the actual narrator in the guise of Serena, then readers of his previous novel Atonement might be a little insulted by the same trick being pulled twice. If I’m to be perfectly honest, I was insulted and this is my first McEwan novel. The additions of the short stories had me believe that Tom was a little egotistical, as well as adding the debriefings where the information sort of dragged. I didn’t find it interesting, or necessary.
I’m the kind of reader that is comfortable walking out of his comfort zone to see what he is missing in the literary world. I was beginning to get as bored as Serena, to the point where I just began to skip paragraphs all together. A habit I thought I kicked back in middle school.
By the end I found myself hating most of the characters with the exception of the ones we met in the first chapter. I felt that Serena may have been screwed the minute that whole towel situation was happening with her first college boyfriend.
Did I hate it? No. Did I like it? No. Am I confused and somewhere in the middle? Yes, very much. I have a tendency of removing books I don’t like from my bookshelf and shipping them off to Amazon. So why can’t I part from this book? Is there an unspoken connection that I have to it? Can it be discovered and discerned within this review? Doubt it, I’ve decided to keep it for a while and return to it once a proper time has passed.
The verdict: I give it a three out of five. Why? Because even though I give it a lot of humming and hawing I consider it to be well written. The story has an interesting premise and it could work if certain things were ignored. The “twist” was stale, no ah-ha moment behind it. Unfortunate but true, Sweet Tooth is readable but for me not a great page turner.
I think this might be the most boring spy book I've ever read.
If this book has haters, im one of them.
If this book has 1 hater, its me.
If this book has 0 haters, I’m dead.
Don’t read it, i swear to god its not worth it.
If this book has 1 hater, its me.
If this book has 0 haters, I’m dead.
Don’t read it, i swear to god its not worth it.
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I didn't think that I was feeling this book - I couldn't really get into it, until I was over half way. But I have to say that the ending made me rethink the entire book, and I really liked it overall!
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
mysterious
Loveable characters:
Complicated
The ending of this book is brilliant. It made the somewhat uneven middle worthwhile.
I'm desperate for a book about the book. I love that the reader feels like they know Serena almost completely and yet you realize you don't.
I was so excited by the synopsis...
but not so by the novel itself. I found the characters unrelatable and not very likable. This was more about their self-absorbed personal dramas than a girl with a degree in math, in the intelligence world.
but not so by the novel itself. I found the characters unrelatable and not very likable. This was more about their self-absorbed personal dramas than a girl with a degree in math, in the intelligence world.