the little bird book review

You know what? I had this really awesome review written up about THE INNOCENT–I mean, awesome, probably the best review I’ve written in a long while–and I went on and on about how McEwan has these details and these characters and these sneaky little plot twists, and I was so proud of my review, I really was. I was just fine-tuning it, and then Safari “unexpectedly quit.”

I felt like crying, I really did.

I tried retyping it from memory, but it was long and glorious and unrecoverable, and so instead I’ll say this:

In every McEwan novel I’ve read, there comes a moment, maybe halfway through, maybe at the beginning, where everything just changes, and an unpredicable something occurs, and the rest of the novel deals with the fall-out from that one event, as the characters struggle through the consequences of whatever choices they made in that moment.

While reading THE INNOCENT, I was curled up into a tense little ball on my couch, just waiting for it, but having no idea what “it” might be. “It” came. Hoo doggie.

RATING: 4