The average user rating for this Book is 7.0 out of 10 (based on 22 Votes).
Karen P gave it a6: Far too smug to be a great book. The story kept me interested and the writing as ever was fluid but the middle class perfection irrated far more than I can attribute to the characters alone. Felt a bit bludgeoned by a McEwan Tory party pamphlet made of 100lb lead. Maybe that says more about me than it does him
federica C gave it an8: it's a little bit slowly in the narration of facts and to precise in lexicon above alll for a non native reader,but I think it's a realistic portrait of our thinking and way of living.sometimes it make me anxious reading it...
TheKate M gave it a3: This book was so sterile and processed that I couldn't wait to put it down and get my hands dirty with something else. Very rarely do I find myself so detached from a novel and its characters that I can spend my time disliking the author and wondering what he did to inspire such neglect from his editors and loved ones... not at all what I expected from Mr. McEwan.
Lucy gave it a5: Too self-consciously intellectual. Feel author's hand in things at every page....trying too hard.
Michael K gave it a10: This is an exemplary current-events novel which embodies everything Philip Roth had in mind when he wrote his influential 1961 essay, "Writing American Fiction." I love this book so much I've read it a few times. Not often mentioned are the allusions to Darwinism, which are somewhat reminiscent of John Fowles's "The French Lieutenant's Woman," and play against the gorgeous Matthew Arnold poem quoted in the story. Part Hitchcockian thriller, I find this novel thrilling in every respect.
stephen h gave it a10: That fiction should finally accept the realities of studies of the brain is a wonder. A citation from Charles Darwin, a stret diagnosis of a heritable genetic disorder and a surgeon who dismisses most fiction as a waste of time are all commendable features of this book. Combing all that with fine characterisation and realistic events make this novel a full step above others. And it was passed over for the Booker??!!
Suzanne S gave it a5: Saturday is a tour de force redoing Mrs. Dalloway as a male neurosurgeon. Perhaps the made-for-tv-movie aspects--such as the Cosby Show family (including Famous Poet But Alcoholic father-in-law, Brilliant, Beautiful Attorney wife, Just-Ripe Poetess daughter, and So-Cool, Handsome Guitarist son) and the climax--are meant to be ironic (and certainly that is achieved in a reader's recipe, suitable for a glossy lifestyle magazine, for the fictional fish stew) , but they come across as simply shallow and enervated. Even with its flourishes, the novel is too clever by half: The research pages about neurology and music audibly turn. I hope that Ian McEwan can find a better way to use his facility.
Suzen gave it an8: I loved the lyrical writing and the tension and how I kept thinking of "Mrs. Dalloway" and Joyce's "The Dead"....I didn't like the plot improbabilities like the daughter not having told about her boyfriend or Henry operating on Baxter. A great read-compelling.
Craigan U. gave it a9: McEwan continues to display intense psychologic savvy. With the very neurosurgical precision its lead character Perowne demonstrates, the author gracefully implants us in Perowne's mind for a day.
Nick R gave it a9: Not quite McEwan's best, but still, an example of a writer at the top of his form, utterly confident in his ability to hold a long note.
Paul P gave it a9: An excellent, very well written novel. McEwan's use of words and phrases is as good as any he has written. Perowne's character is one of solid, but threatened normality. Baxter's character is one of macabre but terrorist "normality." Both are believable. Yet again, McEwan has described what we all have experienced at some time in our lives.
[Anonymous] gave it a0: Terrible, terrible book. I really liked Atonement but this is lazy, unstructured and devoid of any sort of tension, plot or characters you in any way care about. It reads like a series of set pieces thrown together without any overall narrative structure - its like his publishers wanted something immediately to capitalise on Atonement and rushed this out. The occasional original thought is swamped by the general literary mediocracy and lack of focus. And the 'twist' which clearly aspires to thought-provoking irony wouldnt be out of place in a teenage essay. Its one level above 'and then I woke up...' as a formulaic and lazy ending. Very disappointing. And a real case of the Emperor's new clothes.
Gregory S gave it a7: There are many great passages in this novel but the major conflict(s) with Baxter are so implausable and simplistic that they tarnish an otherwise wonderful experience.
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