Book profile
Atonement
- Subgenre
- romance
- Edition year
- 2009-03-19
- Rating
- ★ 3.9 · 519 ratingsExternal reader rating · Hardcover
- Spice
- Heat not verified
Trope map
Tags are supported by source descriptions; they are not reader votes. See how verification works.
Why these tropes fit
On the hottest day of the 1935 English summer, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses her sister Cecilia strip and plunge into a fountain at their country house while Robbie Turner—the son of the Tallis family’s cleaning lady, whose education is subsidized by Cecilia and Briony's father—looks on. By day's end, Robbie and Cecilia cross an unthinkable boundary across their class divide, while Briony witnesses mysteries, glimpses an unspeakable word, and commits a crime that compels her lifelong attempt at atonement. The novel sweeps across love, war, class, and childhood, tracing lives irrevocably altered by shame and the pursuit of forgiveness.
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Read the source evidence
- Coming of Age: “thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis” source
- Forbidden Love: “Robbie Turner, son of the Tallis's cleaning lady, whose education has been subsidized by Cecilia's and Briony's father” source
- Unreliable Narrator: “Briony will have witnessed mysteries, seen an unspeakable word, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone” source
- Tragic Romance: “their lives will be changed – irrevocably” source
Metadata source: Google Books. Quotes are used only to verify the tags.
Content notes
Content notes are not verified yet. This does not mean the book has no sensitive content.
