If Ian McEwan was not written on the front page, I would hardly believe that it is one of his novels. I didn't read one of his books since almost one year and a half and On Chesil Beach was on the "Recommanded" list of my bookstore so I decided to give it a try. Actually it has been a huge torture to finish that book.

Of course, Ian McEwan's writing is still really beautiful. He knows how to write but the story doesn't go anywhere and the characters are uninteresting, and the opposite of deep. The only exception may be Edward but I'm not even quite sure. I find some themes that McEwan likes to explore in his works like misunderstanding and how it can change people lives forever. He has explored that question in Atonement because the vision that Briony had of the situation was totally different from reality but she believed it was true. I think that Atonement is really about misunderstanding, perception and the complexity of human relationships. But On Chesil Beach is far away from that. Edward misunderstands the signals that Florence sends. She can't properly understand him and at the same time blames herself for being different from other women. I mean... it's boring and they don't even get anything from that experience at the end of the book. I really wonder how I actually managed to finish that novel. It's not even like there was an evolution. It's just the story of two people, who thought that they were a couple, and that actually didn't listen or understand each other. Ian McEwan had great material and I know that he can do pretty amazing thing. He spend a lot of pages remembering the reader about Florence and Edward's past and actually it doesn't even contribute to the narrative process because when we go back to the bedroom, it is like they were totally different characters.