Atonement

I always forget how school absolutely annihilates my reading pace, reducing it to near nonexistence. I started this book -- Atonement by Ian McEwan -- in early August and got through it in tiny installments until last night.

Atonement

Ian McEwan

It was superb. I particularly loved it in the summer when I could actually read chunks of it at once, whereas once the semester only let me squeeze in a few pages at a time, maybe every few weeks. So I forgot and reread a lot, exceedingly inefficiently. But I also think the beginning was better. McEwan is awesome at development and building the story up -- if he can do one thing (with plot and organization set aside), this guy can write.

I'm giving it an A-, but only to stay consistent: I've thus far been rating not only the book but also the reading experience for me personally. I think because it took so long, some parts of the novel just felt unnecessarily drawn out -- come to think of it, a large sector in the middle definitely dragged on, and would have even had I read it straight through.

I can't pinpoint anything right now. Sigh. It's Thanksgiving, and my brain isn't supposed to be working. Reviewing books is (ironically) really difficult for me, because I always feel like I need to justify myself about my feelings, but can't, really. This read is a fine one: the beginning is good, the ending is excellent, the middle is worth the time.