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Sweet Tooth: A Novel [Hardcover]

Ian McEwan
3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

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Hardcover, Aug 28 2012 --  

Book Description

Aug 28 2012

Amazon.ca Editors' Pick: Best Books of 2012

Serena Frome, the beautiful mathematician daughter of an Anglican bishop, has a brief affair with an older man during her final year at Cambridge, and finds herself being groomed for the Intelligence Service. The year is 1972: Britain, confronting economic disaster, is being torn apart by industrial unrest and Irish terrorism and faces its fifth state of emergency. The Cold War has entered a moribund phase but the fight goes on and MI5 hesitates at little
to influence hearts and minds. 

Serena, a compulsive reader of novels, is sent by her new employers on a secret mission that brings her into the literary world of Tom Haley, a promising young writer. First, she loves his stories, then she begins to love the man. Can she maintain the fiction of her undercover life? And who is deceiving whom? To answer these
questions, Serena must abandon the first rule of espionage—trust no one.

Ian McEwan masterfully entwines espionage and desire in an unforgettable story of intrigue, betrayal and love.


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Review

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

"A subtly and sweetly subversive novel [that is a] masterful manipulation of the relationship(s) between fiction and truth ... Britain’s foremost living novelist has written a book as drily funny as it is thoughtful."
Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"McEwan's most stylish and personal book to date ... The year's most intensely enjoyable novel."
The Daily Beast

“This is a great big beautiful Russian doll of a novel, and its construction – deft, tight, exhilaratingly immaculate – is a huge part of its pleasure ... Sweet Tooth is a comic novel and a novel of ideas, but, unlike so many of those, it also exerts a keen emotional pull.”
—Julie Myerson, The Observer 

"Thoroughly clever ... a sublime novel about novels, about writing them and reading them and the spying that goes on in doing both ... McEwan has spied on real life to write Sweet Tooth, and in reading it we are invited to spy on him ... Rich and enjoyable."
Financial Times

"A wisecracking thriller hightailing between love and betrayal, with serious counter-espionage credentials thrown in … This is ultimately a book about writing, wordplay and knowingness."
The Telegraph

“McEwan writes with his usual clinical precision, brilliantly evoking the London of dingy Camden flats, the three-day week and IRA atrocities. His assumption of a female persona is pitch-perfect.”
Daily Mail

“A disgraced spy, a failed mission, a ruined lover: Ian McEwan’s new novel, Sweet Tooth, opens at full tilt ... The novel’s pleasures are multiple and, as always with McEwan, they begin with the storytelling.” 
Bloomberg Businessweek

“Sweet Tooth takes the expectations and tropes of the Cold War thriller and ratchets up the suspense ... A well-crafted pleasure to read, its smooth prose and slippery intelligence sliding down like cream.” 
The Independent
 
“Gloriously readable and, at times, wickedly funny.” 
Irish Times

"McEwan fans won’t be disappointed by Sweet Tooth, and newcomers to the author will be meeting him at the top of his game."
The Globe and Mail

About the Author

IAN MCEWAN is the bestselling author of 14 books, including the novels Solar; On Chesil Beach; Saturday; Atonement, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the W. H. Smith Literary Award; The Comfort of Strangers and Black Dogs, both shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Amsterdam, winner of the Booker Prize; and The Child in Time, winner of the Whitbread Award; as well as the story collections First Love, Last Rites, winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, and In Between the Sheets. He lives in England.

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Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars More Bookish Thoughts... Sep 16 2012
By Reader Writer Runner TOP 50 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
I must admit that the premise of Ian McEwan's latest novel did not initially excite me: young, British woman becomes embroiled in intrigue, a love affair and anti-Communist espionage. However, I couldn't take a pass on my favourite author's new work so I gave "Sweet Tooth" a try. As usual, McEwan did not disappoint.

Serena Frome (rhymes with plume), the gorgeous and intelligent daughter of an Anglican bishop and an ambitious mother, reluctantly studies math at Cambridge. In her spare time, she shines as a book reviewer in a student magazine column called "What I Read Last Week." Frome soon discovers Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and starts writing anti-Communist rants, which get her noticed by Tony Canning, a university professor who becomes her lover. Unbeknownst to Serena, Canning grooms her for a career in the intelligence service with MI-5.

Serena's superiors put her in charge of recruiting young academic and promising writer, Tom Healy, into the program. Of course, she cannot tell Healy that his funds come from MI-5; he believes he is being paid by a cultural foundation. Ultimately, Serena leads a double life with Healy; she becomes his lover but also spies on him for the intelligence service. Meanwhile, she believes she is being followed doesn’t know whom she can trust, especially after she finds out a secret about Canning.

As usual, McWean's spare, efficient prose makes this book both memorable and enjoyable. But it's the author's knack for subtly incorporating the unexpected that makes him truly remarkable. "Solar" featured a faked murder, "Atonement" hinged on a crucial lie, and "Amsterdam" ended in devastation. "Sweet Tooth," too, contains a little surprise that everything turns upon. It not only makes the reader gasp audibly; it brilliantly unites the themes of deception, betrayal and unconditional love.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By John Kwok TOP 100 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
Ian McEwan has conjured a most riveting blend of literary fiction, historical fiction and espionage thriller in his latest novel, "Sweet Truth", which is as much a celebration of early 1970s Anglo-American literature as well as a spellbinding espionage thriller of the kind readers might expect from John Le Carre or Ken Follet. Drawn upon a relatively little known aspect of British espionage history, McEwan's new novel is a riveting tale of love and betrayal, espionage and one's own identity. A young Cambridge University student, the literary minded and mathematically inclined Serena Frome, is recruited by MI5 - Great Britain's equivalent of the American FBI - in identifying potential writers who could work on behalf of the Conservative British government on a public disinformation campaign against Britain's left-wing opposition. She soon identifies a likely prospect, the young writer Tom Healy, becoming both his muse, and eventually, his lover, sharing his passion for superb contemporary Anglo-American literature as he writes a potential award-winning dystopian fiction debut novel. Narrated in first-person by Frome years after the events chronicled in "Sweet Tooth", readers are treated to a rapidly spiraling web of deceit as Frome struggles to keep her secret identity as a MI5 agent from Healy, as she retains an intensely intellectual and sexual-charged relationship with him. Much to my amazement, McEwan also treats readers to the best fictional depiction of the Monty Hall problem in probability theory I have encountered, and one especially memorable for its revealing insights pertaining to Frome's behavior. Without question, McEwan's compellingly readable new novel should be viewed as among this year's best and one probably destined for consideration for many of the major awards bestowed upon contemporary Anglo-American literature.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars no need for a medicinal sedative... Sep 29 2012
By Jilly the Reader TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Hardcover
After reading a couple of Ian McEwan's books I was excited to read his newest novel. However, excitement turned into boredom with the slow progression and the yawn-able story line. Having read quite a few snoozers this year, I was hoping for something better, but this turned out to be more of the same. Writers writing about writing. The main character wanted to be a writer, her lover is a writer, they meet over writing, the main character's friend is also a writer, there are several short stories written in the novel that the main character's lover writes, etc etc. As a reader, I'm sick of reading about writing! Overall, I found this story to be slow, unexciting, and it ultimately it had a disappointing ending.
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Most recent customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars SUBTLE ESPIONAGE
I'm not sure if there is such a thing as `subtle espionage' but it seems to be what McEwan was going for with this book.

The end left me deflated. Read more
Published 23 days ago by little lady blue
4.0 out of 5 stars Offbeat spythriller engages throughout..i couldnt put it down
Look up look down
The sky is falling down

A childhood limerick from my youth in which all that the world holds in a child's mind.. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Anthony Marinelli
5.0 out of 5 stars McEwan strikes again
Just brilliant and entertaining once again, totally believable and a fascinating story. Highly recommended and a good first look at McEwan if you are not already a fan.
Published 3 months ago by rotmanpr
4.0 out of 5 stars Solid McEwan effort
If you like McEwan's other novels you won't be disappointed. It's not his best work, but even so, it is well worth reading.
Published 4 months ago by L. Behan
3.0 out of 5 stars A Misfire with an Ending You Probably Won't Love
"For I rejoiced greatly when brethren came and testified of the truth that is in you, just as you walk in the truth. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Donald Mitchell
1.0 out of 5 stars Cleaner
I concur with Jilly. This novel was an astounding letdown. One would expect so much more from Ian MacEwen. Writing about "writing" is at best, mundane. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Caraleen
5.0 out of 5 stars The Breaking and Remaking of Trust
Like previous works by McEwan, "Sweet Tooth" turned out to be a satisfying and challenging read. The main character, Serena Frome, is a young lady who struggles, in a very... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Ian Gordon Malcomson
2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
Cannot believe that such a good author could write such a bad book. Ploughed through it until it ended with with a good finish. Should have started that way...
Published 6 months ago by Casey
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