Half way there folks. Who would have thunk it? And ultimately, who cares? Haha. Well, I do but, I’m also surprised at the traffic I’m getting to these posts so some people are at least following along. At the beginning of the week I was at a funeral of an uncle and one of my 2nd cousins asked me “How’s your books going?”.

A Pure Stoater

Anyway, enough of me trying to convince myself that these blog posts are worth it.

A couple of years ago I watched the movie of this book. I loved it. Probably the first ‘period drama’ I’ve regarded as completely awesome. The long scene on the beach at Dunkirk comes to mind. As a result in my initial post about this we project I wondered if I should take it off the list. I know what happens at the end etc, etc. But I decided to keep it on and see if the book had anything more to give.

I’m totally glad I did. And at the same time I’m now completely gutted that I hadn’t read the book before seeing the film.

This book really blew me away. It had everything that made the movie great, obviously, but had so much more in the book that sent it to a new level of greatness. I don’t want to give too much away, but I can tell you that Atonement is the story of how an overly dramatic, naive young girl misinterprets a series of events one day during a family gathering. The result has unimaginable consequences for the future of the family. The book’s title Atonement refers to the young girls plight through the rest of her life to make amends for what she did on that day.

I watched the movie again since finishing this book on Thursday last week. It really does the book justice but there are some scenes I wish they had included in the movie (even though I can understand why they ain’t there). The moment in the book where Mace intervenes on the killing of the RAF pilot. The chapter with Emily Tallis having a migraine was one of my favourites in the book yet there is a 10 second shot of her in her bed in the movie. Briony finally having her play performed to her.

If you can’t be arsed reading the book, then please give the movie a bash. Here is the trailer:

Without a doubt my favourite book so far.

Rating:

Moving back to A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius next. I had to buy this off eBay as Amazon still don’t have it in Kindle format. Back to old paper format. Aww man!