2023 EDIT: Part of my 2023 clear-up, of books I no longer like, or am no longer interested in, or remember well as standing out, or find as special anymore, or I otherwise will not miss.
Final Score: 3/5
Original Review:
A truly original tragic love story - about love in its many forms.
No one should have to suffer what Briony Tallis suffered. No one should have to put up with that kind of guilt all their life. One moment she was a little girl and an aspiring author, and then one night she deliberately falsely accused her sister's lover of sexual assault on her cousin. She ended up ruining two lives, and just as World War II was about to begin.
Such things cannot be undone. And even at old age Briony is still not rid of her painful guilt. Her once childish fancies, her confusion and flighty, overactive imagination had caused her grief which she'll spend the rest of her life trying to atone for.
As an aspiring author myself, I sympathised with her plight greatly.
'Atonement' does meander with descriptions of unimportant things - with very long paragraphs explaining, for example, nothing but how a tip of a finger looks like - but the story and characters are so rich, three-dimensional and REAL, that I read this book with gusto. The settings were written no differently as well, for a historical novel.
One of the saddest and most beautifully-written stories I've read, and it was to become my mother's favourite film.
Final Score: 4/5
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