Ian McEwan’s Atonement, and its subsequent film adaptation starring Keira Knightly and James McAvoy, is one of the reasons that I wrote Spoiler Alert.

About halfway through the book, Robbie, our falsely accused hero, has joined the British army and is trudging through the woods. He passes a rock and then a tree and then another rock and then another tree and then another rock and then—well, you get the idea. I skipped ahead a few pages … more rocks and trees. Skipping further ahead, yet more rocks and trees. A Frenchman or two appear, but it’s still mostly rocks and trees. Robbie passes them; he thinks about them, too, as does Mr. McEwan. I, on the other hand, don’t. I don’t care about rocks, aside from moving them aside for fracking purposes, nor do I think about trees, except that we’re tearing them down faster than they can grow back. But there was no Occupy the Woods movement to protest fracking or deforestation in Atonement. Just lots of passing and thinking. A few hundred pages later, we learn that pretty much none of it ever happened. Briony, the troublemaking little sister, felt so bad about Robbie and Cecilia dying terribly and horribly alone that she made up the second half of the book, including, but not limited to, Robbie’s endless meandering through Endor.

My reaction to the ending: You’re kidding me, right? How many nights did I waste before the satisfying happily-ever-after ending dissolved into a completely unsatisfying they-all-die one? Too many, that’s how many.

But in the movie, we’re in and out of those woods in minutes, and, let’s be honest here, those few minutes would have felt too long if not for Jimmy Mac in uniform. Having already read the book, I knew the film was coming to a conclusion the minute Vanessa Redgrave popped on screen. Plus, in accordance with natural law, it’s always nicer and more satisfying when Vanessa tells you things.

Because I knew the ending already, those two hours watching the movie were far more enjoyable than days reading the book. Watching the faces in the theater register the full extent of Briony’s manipulation of everyone’s lives—including their own—also enhanced my heady mix of anticipation and omnipotence.

Oh, and there was extra butter on my popcorn, too, which was nice.

Guest Post Written by Robb Pearlman, author of the novel, Spoiler Alert.’

About Robb: 

“I’m a writer, editor, pop-cultureologist, and strong believer in the serial comma.

With the exception of a few years working in a college financial aid department (seriously, what was that about?  I literally cannot add without counting fingers), I’ve been lucky enough to have spent my entire career in publishing, which requires mercifully little arithmatic. 

I’m allergic to pretty much everything, know every line of Funny Girl by heart, and am the founder of the Alderaan Optimists Society Facebook page. I hope more members join, but I know in my heart they won’t.  Sigh.

I’m known in book stores from New York to Gotham City to Hogwarts to Dagobah to Vulcan, and consider Oscar, Emmy, and Tony nights to be high holidays.”