Ian McEwan

The Cement Garden (Vintage Blue)

I really enjoyed Atonement so I was eager to read another of McEwan’s works. This book was. Odd. It wasn’t the weirdest book I’ve read by far, it was just. Odd. Not bad, I enjoyed the unhinged family dynamics but unsure what this book was exactly. A coming of age story but slightly to the left?

Bowie 

Kayleigh hughes

I know i'm in the minority but I hate Ian McEwan and I hate  The Cement Garden . It wasn't the content, done right those dark themes make for an incredible read. I just don't think McEwan was equipped to write such a story. Unlike everyone else on here I didn't find his writing well done, I felt like I was reading one of my uni classmate's assignments when they're trying to sound like a hoity-toity literary star. Basically I was too aware that I was reading the words of the writer, rather than the narrator. I think the story has potential, I think a few very interesting things were set up and perhaps if he'd spent longer on it, or tackled it later in life he could have done the story justice.

Daniela V.

I wouldn't say this book is disturbingly beautiful because it's nothing of "beautiful". But it was different, original, a good read.

The first part was dynamic and terrible. (view spoiler)[Four kids lose their parents and they have to live on their own (hide spoiler)]

The second one started bad and ended up being good. (view spoiler)[The whole Derek thing was boring for me but it seemed necesary for the story, after all it's the main conflict (hide spoiler)]

The ending was excellent, and I don't understand how some people are arguing about it. They say that McEwan left everything untied but I think the opposite! It's all knot there!

Jawad Abdulrazzaq

natalia

Jackson Weaver

Barış Yarsel

The cement garden

Lindsy Rice

Joshua Line

Valeria M

Klaus Eck

Kahli Scott

Juliana

In the arid summer heat, four children – Jack, Julie, Sue and Tom – find themselves abruptly orphaned. All the routines of childhood are cast aside as the children adapt to a now parentless world. Alone in the house together, the children’s lives twist into something unrecognisable as the outside begins to bear down on them.

The Cement Garden (Vintage Blue)

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