A Wife Now Living

Gilead Book review by Margaret Marilynne Robinson Rating: 6.5/10 Date read: 12 June to 18 June Gilead is a 2004 fictional epistolary novel by Marilynne Robinson, whose main character, a Congregationalist pastor called John Ames, is writing letters to his son. John is in his late seventies and married to a woman more than thirty years his junior, with an unnamed son of about six years old. John knows that, due to his heart condition, he will not live for much longer, so he has decided to leave a monologic record of various experiences, thoughts, meditations, observations and impressions for his son to read when he is older, presumably after John’s death. However, John’s son plays a relatively minor role in the book itself; rather, Jack Boughton, the son of John’s best friend, plays the most active role in the story, serving as one of the primary focuses of John’s thoughts.  I found this novel to be highly engaging on an ideological level, though the story itself was meandering and f

Atonement Book review by Margaret Ian McEwan Rating: 8/10 Date read: 8 June to 11 June Atonement is a 2001 British metafiction novel which takes place in three settings: 1935 England, Second World War England and France, and 1999 England. It follows the story of Briony Tallis, a thirteen-year-old, upper-class girl whose innocent mistake one summer night ruins the lives of her elder sister, Cecelia, and Cecelia’s childhood friend and lover, Robbie Turner. Briony spends the rest of her life trying to atone for her mistake, as the effects of it spread throughout her family. Atonement is centred around themes such as the power of storytelling, the nature of perspective, regret and guilt, and childhood versus adulthood (Sparknotes).  In short, I was enthralled by the first half and utterly bored by the second. I thought the writing was excellent; the setting was richly vivid, the characters deep and unique, and the story (at least the first part) absolutely gripping. Yet I hate war sto