Saturday

When I decided to start posting links to the books I was currently reading, I had no idea that I would want to write a review of each one! But that's what it's turning into - they've all been so good, I want to share them with everyone!

Early Monday morning, high in the sky (my flight was at 6:40 - who the hell schedules flights that early?), I finished Ian McEwan's Saturday. Everyone else in the cabin was asleep and snoring. I was that obnoxious passenger - the only one with her light on. Sorry!

Anyway, it was, as his other novels, poignant and brilliant.

Saturday follows a British neurosurgeon on a random Saturday. It's set sometime after September 11th and the invasion of Iraq, and McEwan reflects the views and opinions of both sides - using his main character, Henry, and his daughter, Daisy, as mouthpieces. The best part about this side storyline was that both Henry and Daisy began to understand the other's views and appreciate their differences. That's something many people could learn!

The reader comes to meet his small family and really makes you like each of them. Tragedy strikes, of course, and Henry is faced with an astoudingly difficult situation and decision.

McEwan consulted with top neurosurgeons in order to craft what should have been very difficult, impossible-to-understand medical-jargoned passages. But his words flow flawlessly, and I actually found myself really following a brain surgery - and enjoying it. If that's possible...

I really recommend any work by Ian McEwan. He has yet to disappoint me.