Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
This intense tale woven by McEwan is a disturbing look into the true horrors of obsessive love. Put frankly, it terrified me. The story follows a man named Joe Rose, a scientific journalist, who lives with his wife quite happily, until one day a horrifying hot air balloon crash brings him across Jed Parry, a delusional young man who believes Joe was brought into his life by a higher power. As the book progresses Parry becomes more and more unpredictable and he unravels Joe's life, driving him to manic paranoia and forcing Joe away from his family.
Though this book is incredibly haunting and frankly quite worrying, I read it in one day. McEwan's style immediately had me hooked, and I know that it is rare to find an opening chapter as thrilling and as gripping as the one presented in this book. This book offered a lot on insight to how the workings of the human psyche can be used to mould a plot, though it's used to the extreme, in that Parry's obsessive disposition is the entire plot, it was really well done, without demonising Parry too much.
I usually find it difficult to get into many contemporary romances that aren't teen literature (I'm too scared to grow up, clearly) but I found this to be a great new take on love, or more specifically the dangers of love. Those who are a great lover of typical romance probably wouldn't get much of a kick out of it, but if you want to explore the typical Romeo and Juliet turned on its head, reshaped, and burned and have an un-see-able look at love rise from its ashes; I would highly recommend you read this book.
It's difficult for me to think of a reason someone wouldn't love this book! There's no way I can praise it enough, and would widely encourage everyone I meet to read it. McEwan just makes this novel so interesting and so accessible that any lover of any book ever should read this.
In short, this was the first of McEwan's work I've read, and I was not disappointed.
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