"Sweet Tooth" - Ian McEwan

Published in 2012 by Jonathan Cape

King of the Twist! That is my new nickname for Ian McEwan.  If you have read (or seen) Atonement you already know that this guys got endings in the bag.  I was truly surprised when this novel flipped from slightly boring romantic intrigue based in the 1970s, and made me go back a page to catch the twist again.

This is the story of Serena Frome (rhymes with Plume) and her induction and service with MI5.  It is the 1970's in Britain and there is considerable turmoil over communism and how to sneakily keep the citizens from seeing it as a good idea.  McEwan explores the relationship between government and literature, and throws in a healthy dose of girlish anxiety.

It wasn't my favorite novel, a little bland but well written and then end was worth the few days it took.  Unlike atonement, the characters weren't quite as well formed and I personally didn't feel any real emotional bond to them.

Rating: ***

Quotes:
"I didn't use, and hadn't even heard, the word "totalitarianism." I probably would have through it had something to do with refusing a drink.

"I was the bases of readers.  All I wanted was my own world, and myself in it, given back to me in artful shapes and accessible form"

"It was vulgar to want it, but I liked someone to say "Marry me" by the end.

"There was, in me view, an unwritten contract with the reader that the writer must honor.  No single element of an imagined world or any of its characters should be allowed to dissolve on authorial whim. The invented had to be as solid and as self-consistent as the actual.  This was a contract founded on mutual trust."

"Atonement" - Ian McEwan

Published in 2001 by First Anchor Books

This book weighed heavily on my mind for the days that lead up to actually reading it.  I had seen the movie back in college and remember finding Kiera Knightly pretty but inept at actually conveying any real emotion, and the young girl who played Briony was intolerable and by the end I felt like I had missed the story because the characters were so distracting.

So the fact that I really truly overwhelmingly liked this book says something.  I am still not sure what that something is though.  But I am leaning in the very positive side right now.

Atonement is a novel in four parts; part one focuses on the events of a single night and how the choices a thirteen year old girl (Briony) makes can destroy the lives of others, part two focuses on the war effort in France (where Robbie, the one hurt the most by the young girls words is fighting overseas,) part three showcases the life of Briony as she has aged and can now see what she did in a different light, as well as a light dalliance on what has become of the other characters, and part four in based in London in 1999 when she finds out there isn't long for her to live.

By the end of the movie I was angry and felt that Briony was a waste of space, but the book was very different.  I felt sad for her, and for her inability to truly make amends with anyone.  Without giving away too much, this was an excellent book, definitely one of the best I have read recently.  And the twist is surprising and jolting even when you know it's coming.

Rating: ****