Curiouser and Curiouser (The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan)

I've read Ian McEwan before- Atonement and Saturday were both beautiful, wonderful, moving novels. And I thought that The Cement Garden would also be interesting....I've learned my lesson that you can't judge a book by the blurb on the back.

Terrible.

Horrible.

No Good.

Very bad.

Now that I've got that out of my system, let me tell you a bit about the book. It's very short, which means that I finished it very quickly (and if it was any longer, I probably wouldn't have finished it). It's a story about children who have lost their parents, and the ties that bind them together. Unfortunately, those ties include incest and other awkward things.

I was vaguely reminded of another book I hate, Catcher in the Rye. Like Catcher, the main protagonist of The Cement Garden was a teenage boy, and his behavior was certainly reminiscent of Holden Caulfield. They're both self-absorbed, miserable, off-putting characters. Ugh. Needless to say, I don't recommend this particular Ian McEwan.

I suppose, in a way, that my last read (The Likeness) led me into reading this book. Some books just set up perfectly for the next one, and I'm not sure that I really would have liked any book that I read after the last one, so I guess it's good that I read a really terrible book. Also, some of the themes were the same (such as the loss of family, which was predominant in both).

I'm taking the other three books I mentioned last time to the beach, so expect a post when I get home. Until then, Happy Reading!