Atonement by Ian McEwan. Oh man. This is an amazing book. One of the best things that I've read in a very long time. This novel is divided into four different parts. The main character is a woman named Briony who is thirteen in the first part, a young adult in the second and third parts and and elderly woman in the last part. The other important characters are Briony's family, particularly her sister, Cecilia, and their old gardener's son, Robbie, who becomes Cecilia's love interest. The first part takes place on one day in the summer and shifts perspectives between the various people involved in what would become the defining event of the rest of their lives. The second part is Robbie's experience retreating out of France. The third section shows Briony becoming a nurse during the war and the short last section is about Briony when she's old and had been diagnosed with a fatal disease. Briony convinces herself that Robbie is a sexual deviant and wrongly accuses him of being the rapist who attacked her cousin on that summer day. Robbie then goes to jail and is unable to continue the medical profession he was originally pursuing. He becomes a soldier during World War II. Cecilia breaks off all ties with her family and becomes a nurse. Briony also decides to become one after she begins to realize just what she did. The beginning is my favorite part of the book. My mom is reading this right now and she is having trouble getting past it. There isn't too much that happens in the first hundred pages, but McEwan does an excellent job with the various characters' narrations. He perfectly captures the mind of the innocent adolescent. I think that some of the best lines in the book are the thoughts of the thirteen year old Briony. Her thoughts are uncensored and he really taps into the complete selfishness of children, how entitled she feels she is to everything. She is such a great character, but I completely hate her at the same time. This book was pretty rough in the emotional sense. A great source of tension was from how vested I became in Robbie's survival. I felt like I was holding my breath for most of part the third part after not knowing if he was able to successfully escape France. When Briony finally visits Cecilia and I saw that Robbie was safely with her, I let out a giant sigh of relief and found myself smiling through that entire scene. While Briony isn't forgiven by her sister and Robbie, she is forgiven by the reader (at least a little bit!) after you know that Robbie and Cecilia are still able to be together. If you don't know how it ends, stop reading now.
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Then comes the final section of the book. Actually it's more like the last three pages. It starts out fine. Briony talks about her life and how she became writer and married. Eventually we get to her birthday party, where Cecilia and Robbie are not in attendance. I was thinking, "Did they never forgive her? That's kind of sad... Or did they already die from old age? That would be okay..." Neither of which provides the real reason behind it. We reach the last three pages and get the real answer. Robbie died a few hours before the troops were rescued from his infected wounds. Cecilia was killed a few months later from a bomb... Parts one through three were the final version of Briony's latest book, where she wanted to give them the relationship they were never allowed to have. WHAT THE FUCK!? How did this bitch live with herself all those years!? Her being a fucking ridiculous little bitch completely destroyed the lives of everyone around her. Damn it! This does not fix it, this does not make it okay! How could you even think that it comes anywhere close to doing so!? GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! When I finished this book I sat in my bed for a long time just thinking about how absolutely horrid these characters' lives were and yet how completely beautiful this book was.
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You may continue now. Anyway, if you enjoy not wanting to kill yourself quit reading after the end of part three. I know that that lessens its artistic merit, or something, but I promise that you'll still have some hope in humanity if you stop where I told you to. However, if you're like me and that's already gone, then go ahead and finish the book and revel in the complete wretchedness that is life.
...
Then comes the final section of the book. Actually it's more like the last three pages. It starts out fine. Briony talks about her life and how she became writer and married. Eventually we get to her birthday party, where Cecilia and Robbie are not in attendance. I was thinking, "Did they never forgive her? That's kind of sad... Or did they already die from old age? That would be okay..." Neither of which provides the real reason behind it. We reach the last three pages and get the real answer. Robbie died a few hours before the troops were rescued from his infected wounds. Cecilia was killed a few months later from a bomb... Parts one through three were the final version of Briony's latest book, where she wanted to give them the relationship they were never allowed to have. WHAT THE FUCK!? How did this bitch live with herself all those years!? Her being a fucking ridiculous little bitch completely destroyed the lives of everyone around her. Damn it! This does not fix it, this does not make it okay! How could you even think that it comes anywhere close to doing so!? GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! When I finished this book I sat in my bed for a long time just thinking about how absolutely horrid these characters' lives were and yet how completely beautiful this book was.
...
You may continue now. Anyway, if you enjoy not wanting to kill yourself quit reading after the end of part three. I know that that lessens its artistic merit, or something, but I promise that you'll still have some hope in humanity if you stop where I told you to. However, if you're like me and that's already gone, then go ahead and finish the book and revel in the complete wretchedness that is life.
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