Atonement

I saw the movie first. For some people this is always a dilemma, which to see first, the movie or the book? I find that I am enough of a story glutton that I don't care. I often enjoy them without any need to compare to the book. Of course, a bad adaptation of a book will always be bad, but I never feel that either the movie spoils the book or the book spoils the movie.

5/5. I love the plot in this book. I love how well it ties into the title. Ian McEwan does a great job helping us to see inside the head of a 13 year old girl. He spends about half the book building up the reality, helping you to inhabit the environment, the characters, the family. I felt the relationships between the sisters, their brother, their mother, their distant father. I knew what it was like to grow up in this country manor, in a semi-respectable family.

I think I have understood a new thing about what I enjoy in a book. I enjoy being in the headspace of the characters. A little dialogue, a little setting, a little action(or even maybe a lot), a bit of history(real or fabricated), and a lot of ethical, dramatic tension. One way to get that ethical tension is through mental narration, and I like it.