Zmeyette's Book #3: Atonement by Ian McEwan

Atonement by Ian McEwan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sometimes what I remember of books, more than the story itself, are the experiences I was going through while I was reading the book. Just like in this instance, where my memories of reading this book evoke the stress of schoolwork which always ended up in me having to put off reading for another day, because there are other things that I should be reading for school.

However, that made finishing this book more than just finishing a book: it came to symbolize some sort of success, a release--freedom, finally. Because since I'm now able to finish Atonement, it means that I'm finally on vacation, and it means that I've really been able to finish my first year in law school. It is some kind of a sweet success, to have been able to finish even just that one year without giving up.

Anyway, on to the book. My thoughts, or thought, right now, some minutes after finishing the book, is this: "There's a reason why I stick to YA or fantasy books." And indeed, there is. I'm an escapist. I read to escape. Sometimes, reality becomes too much, and so I read. But in this book, there is no escape. One mistake can be very fatal, can have such repercussions that even a simple "I'm sorry" cannot undo what damage has been caused. And in a situation like this, indeed, how can one find atonement? Especially if, as Briony Tallis put it, as a novelist, she is also God?

Atonement is a tale that at first made me itch to get the preliminaries done and to finally see the point of the story, the "crime" that has been done. But once I came to that point, it was as if I wanted to go back to that sweet ignorance that everyone was in before that fateful night where imagination became self-delusion and spilled over to reality, wrecking it.

Again, I am an escapist. But when I read, it's as if I am transported into another world, and I feel strongly. I don't become numb. And Atonement has touched my heart, and squeezed, even to the point of crushing, it. What a story.


View all my reviews