“A tour de force. . . . Every bit as affecting as it is gripping.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“Atonement is a deliriously great read, but more than that it is a great book.” —The Globe and Mail

“It is rare for a critic to feel justified in using the word ‘masterpiece,’ but Ian McEwan’s new book really deserves to be called one. . . . Atonement is a work of astonishing depth and humanity.” —The Economist

“A masterpiece of moral inquiry. . . . Beautiful and wrenching.” —New York

“What a joy it is to read a book that shocks one into remembering just how high one's literary standards should be. . . . A tour de force.” —Noah Richler, National Post

“[Atonement] hauls a defining part of the British literary tradition up to and into the 21st century.” —The Guardian

“His most complete and passionate book to date.” —The New York Times Book Review

“[McEwan’s] best novel so far. . . . It will break your heart.” —Toronto Star

“Atonement is a magnificent novel, shaped and paced with awesome confidence and eloquence; as searching an account of error, shame and reparation as any in modern fiction.” —The Independent

“McEwan is technically at the height of his powers.” —The New York Review of Books

“McEwan's Atonement . . . truly dazzles, proving to be as much about the art and morality of writing as it is about the past.” —Brian Bethune, Maclean’s

“Atonement [is] McEwan's best novel, so far, his masterpiece. . . . Meditation on the impulse of storytelling itself.” —Evening Standard

“Magnificent. . . . McEwan forces his readers to turn the pages with greater dread and anticipation than does perhaps any other ‘literary’ writer working in English today.” —Claire Messud, The Atlantic Monthly

“I can’t imagine many readers who won’t find it compelling from beginning to end.” —Phillip Marchand, The Toronto Star

“The narrative, as always with McEwan, smoulders with slow-burning menace. The book is magically readable and never has McEwan shown himself to be more in sympathy with the vulnerability of the human heart.” —The Sunday Times

“No one now writing fiction in the English language surpasses Ian McEwan.” —The Washington Post Book World

“Atonement has power and stature and is compulsively readable.” —The Gazette

“A classic McEwan performance, combining an intense forward narrative thrust with the sharpness of observation and description that has made him this country’s unrivalled literary giant.” —The Independent

“Brilliant. . . . McEwan could be the most psychologically astute writer working today, our era’s Jane Austen.” —Esquire

“Class conflict, war and the responsibilities of the artist are among the themes of Atonement, but it is Ian McEwan’s writing that makes this novel one of his best.” —The Ottawa Citizen

“McEwan is a consistently entertaining storyteller. . . . Even by his exacting standards his latest novel is extraordinary.” —The Times

“Luminous. . . . Atonement is brilliant and like nothing he’s ever written before.” —Newsweek

“With a clear prose style and a humming sense of tension throughout, Atonement is both illuminating and entertaining.” —The Edmonton Journal

“Magically readable. . . . Never has McEwan shown himself to be more in sympathy with the vulnerability of the human heart.” —The Sunday Times

“Enthralling. . . . With psychological insight and a command of sensual and historical detail, Mr. McEwan creates an absorbing fictional world.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Ian McEwan’s writing is so vivid it can make your eyes ache. . . . Atonement sustains, rewards and surprises right up to its final page.” —Victoria Times-Colonist

“The close-up verdict will be simple enough: Atonement is a magnificent novel.” —The Independent

“Flat-out brilliant. . . . Lush, detailed, vibrantly colored and intense.” —San Francisco Chronicle

“It is difficult to imagine how the book might be bettered. . . . Atonement is a tremendous achievement.” —The Vancouver Sun

“A work of astonishing depth and humanity.” —The Economist

“Resplendent. . . . Graceful. . . . Magisterial. . . . Gloriously realized.” —The Boston Sunday Globe

“Astonishing. . . . Gorgeous. . . . Bewitching. . . . A thought-provoking, luxuriant novel.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

“A first-rate novel on any scale. . . . His most expansive and ambitious book. . . . Few, if any, novelists writing today match McEwan in ingenuity and plotting.” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“A novel of artistry, power and truth . . . quite simply, magnificent—a masterpiece.” —The Baltimore Sun

“Magical. . . . A love story, a war story, and a story about stories, and so it hits the heart, the guts and the brain.” —The New York Observer

“McEwan is one of the most gifted literary storytellers alive. . . . [Atonement] implants in the memory a living, flaming presence.” —James Wood, The New Republic

“In the seriousness of its intentions and the dazzle of its language, Atonement made me starry-eyed all over again on behalf of literature’s humanizing possibilities.” —Daphne Merkin, Los Angeles Times

“Luminous. . . . McEwan’s writing has often made me blink, but never before blink with emotion. . . . [McEwan] is at one with his talent.” —Robert Cremins, Houston Chronicle

“Astonishing. . . . Something you will never forget.” —Chicago Tribune

“Atonement can’t be laid down once it’s been picked up.” —The Weekly Standard

“The extraordinary range of Atonement suggests that there’s nothing McEwan can’t do.” —The Christian Science Monitor