Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan

An Anglican bishop's daughter gets in over her head with British Intelligence in this John le Carre-esque caper from the author of *Atonement*. Brash, bookish Serena just might make a perfect spy-if she can keep her heart under wraps.

DNF at 10%.

Love doesn't grow at a steady rate, but advances in surges, bolts, wild leaps, and this was one of those.

On par with his last novel, Solar, this book is reasonably enjoyable but not as much so as some of his previous work.

Clever. There's a thin veneer of a spy story, but that's not really what this book is about. None of the characters are especially likeable, but they are all telling stories and some of the stories are about themselves. We know some of the stories are untrue, and others we wonder about. Even though I didn't like the characters at all (well, there was one marginal character I liked for his authenticity who was absent for most of the story), I wanted to know what was going to happen in their stories and what they would make of themselves.

I wasn't crazy about the characters themselves, but the stories within the story were better than the “story.” Knowing McEwan, that was done purposefully, which would give it a higher rating for me.