A review by emmacb
On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

For a book that started off as an 'ok well I've started so let's slog through to the end of this since it's so short' type of read, the last two thirds of this book had me entranced. It's a sweetly sad story of two people who, had they just had a little more maturity or life experience in the one key moment, might have been happy. 
There are definitely some darker undertones to this book, but overall I finished it with an odd sense of nostalgia for a different ending that might have been! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Acephobia/Arophobia

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

Spoiler

This might just be me as I haven't read any other reviews or opinions on this book, but I thought the book might be hinting that Florence had been molested by her father in some way in the past. It's subtle enough that I'm not sure if it's just me reading into it in a darkly wrong way, but still kind of there. If I'm right that raises the acephobic narrative of being asexual due to trauma but that's a whole other ball game. There's also a fair bit of acephobic language just in the way Edward reacts to Florence and the way she refers to herself as having something wrong with her a few times.