On reflection, I am giving this book 5 stars. I have thought about it a lot since finishing it and I think its a great piece of writing.

Ah, what a sad but incredibly lovely read this was. Imagine the utmost British reserve, twined with the era in which this is set: very early 1960's, maddeningly close but fractionally before the explosion of free love and flower power.

For Florence and Edward, the young newly weds, this story is beautifully unwrapped in sparse yet rich prose as two individuals, both of rather eccentric upbringings, who come together in an assumption of love, yet due to their backgrounds and inward reserve, have a tortured passage towards their union as husband and wife.

The description of both made me almost feel that they had been hugely unlucky to be born in that exact time as they so narrowly missed out on a wave of open love which might have knocked them off their feet and carried them along with a force they both naturally lack due to their reserve, shyness, sense of duty, call it what you will, utterly tragic and with dire consequences.

Both characters' parents are brought into the mix, perhaps to show that their eccentricities were partly responsible for producing children who were painfully aware of their sexuality but unable to realise what they should and could be capable of in a free and loving environment, simply because they had never been shown or told that this sort of love is natural and wonderful. The novel, although short, truly conveys the distinct possibility that one's actions can have a lifelong effect on us.

In terms of writing, I felt that Ian McEwan really was a brilliantly beautiful writer of this tale and really conveyed such a sense of awakening in both characters - see below:

'For the first time, her love for Edward was associated with a definable physical sensation, as irrefutable as vertigo. Before, she had known only a comforting broth of warm emotions,a thick winter blanket of kindness and trust. That had always seemed enough, an achievement in itself. Now here at last were the beginnings of desire, precise and alien, but clearly her own: and beyond, as though suspended above and behind her, just out of sight, was relief that she was just like everyone else.'

Just enough detail in their day to day lives but it really sprang into life in his descriptions of their feelings and natural make-up and how they were discovering more about themselves and each other day by day. Ultimately, what Florence discovers about herself and how this manifests itself in her new marriage has major consequences for both. I was very moved by this short read and the final passages were so well written that I wont forget them for a long time.