I did really enjoy this book, even if I felt that the author was and is the most pretentious pompous ass I have read. It seemed to me that he must have been getting paid per word and not for the book because why else would there be a very, very large amount of run-on sentences!! I mean get real buddy this is simple things that you learn in English class in the 3rd grade! I found that the massive use of unnecessary words distracted from the story itself and it also was that way in the movie. There was A LOT of just walking and waiting that really could have been shortened. I do have to say that it was a book that I couldn’t put down but I don’t feel that it was only because of wanting to know what happened but it was also so I would be able to stay in the grove of just plowing through the heavy unnecessary wordiness of it all. I felt that McEwan was trying to show us all how smart he was and how well he could use a dictionary instead of working more on the story. I felt that in the end all that it did was to in fact take away from an amazing story! I would have preferred to have more of the story put before me and less of the colour of the sky at all times of the day! I really enjoyed the way that young Briony is unable to understand what she sees and in fact it would seem to me that not even Cecelia or Robbie are able to take it all in. I love the way you can see how all of their minds work throughout the story and how they will always have to rely on their own discernment of the chain of events that shaped their lives into what they were. I’m not sure that there is ever really any atonement in the end but is there ever really any? Everyone has things that they did that were wrong and wish that they could change them but there is in fact a point that no matter what you cannot apologize for the past. I did enjoy that no matter how you want the story to end you will be happy and yet sad at the same time as is true with all things in life!