Finishing Atonement (Spoilers. Serious spoilers.)

Today I finally finished reading Atonement. All in all it's a pretty good novel. That said, the first "twist" was kinda predictable and the second was just irritating. Essentially the way the novel ends up being set up is parts 1 - 3 are a novel that Briony Tallis (one of the main characters) wrote. Part 4 of the novel is an epilogue told from a first person perspective by Briony Tallis. This takes place outside of the novel that parts 1 - 3 are. In the ending of the novel inside the novel, Briony manages to begin to actually atone for her crimes. Cecilia and Robbie succeed in being together, and all is starting to look like it could be rather nice and pleasant. In part 4 however, it turns out that this didn't really happen and was just part of Briony's novel. Robbie actually died of blood poisoning in France and Cecilia was killed during a bombing. Now, I really don't mind sad endings at all. To be perfectly honest they're often somewhat refreshing. What I found annoying was the fact that the good, happy ending was all set up only to have it switch around and slap you in the face. That annoyed me.

Just noticed that I've read enough of Atonement to be ready for the next week or two of assignments I have to do on it. This is very bad for my motivation.

Main thoughts about Atonement

Ok, so, I have to read Atonement by Ian McEwan for my Intro to English Studies class. Now, it isn't a bad book, and I don't particularly mind reading it, but I'm prevented from saying I enjoy it. It's pretty well written, and the characters in it are well portrayed and actually kinda cool. The issue I've been having is that I'm finding it to be a fairly boring story. Sure, the World War II part is pretty interesting, but there are other books that have been more so. The whole rape mess at the beginning just kinda bored me. I can't exactly say why, I just feel like there are other stories I'd much rather read. Which is a shame, because as I said, the characters in the book are actually really good. I do want to know more about Robbie in particular, but he just ends up in not hugely interesting situations. Is a book still good if it's a boring story as long as everything else about it is well done? I dunno.