Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

You'll have no problem reading Saturday. There's nothing difficult about it. Indeed, as usual with McEwan, you won't be able to remember one phrase, or even word, a week after reading it. Surely the best novelist in England should be leaving something memorable behind him? And then there are the characters. It's not surprising all those politicians thought Saturday was the book of the year. The protagonist is living the life they all hanker after. He's living the life of McEwan himself, basically, with the exception of the brain surgery bits which have been clumsily grafted on to mask the autobiographical element, and also to invite eulogies pivoting around the surgeon's incision / the novelist's incision. Now those characters. Lead: most gifted brain surgeon of his generation. Daughter: most gifted poet of her generation. Son: most gifted musician of his generation. Father-in-law: most gifted poet of his generation. Mother: most gifted swimmer in her county. Wife: a top lawyer (incredibly not the most gifted lawyer of her generation, as far as we know anyway). Does this sound like any family you know? Me neither. I appreciate he's drawing a picture of privilege, but he's also inviting us to admire and like these people, and they're all so horridly smug it's unbearable. I actually felt delighted when the edifice was shattered, and disappointed that calm was restored so effortlessly - can that be the desired effect? And the details. Can you seriously imagine a guy coming up to 50 who's able, in the course of one day, to have sex, face down a mugging, play squash, drive around for a few hours, prepare a huge family meal, overpower armed intruders into his house (with the aid of his daughter who reads poetry to prevent being raped), sit down for the meal he prepared, go off to conduct brain surgery all night, come back and then, oh yes, where was I, I'm ready for a bit more sex now, it only being 5 o'clock in the morning and the police coming round at 10 o'clock and everything. So it's readable. But is any of this likely? Is any of this likable? Is any of this helpful?