The Cement Garden

Review: The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan. 4 Stars 11/17/2018Ian McEwan is a great writer and in this short story he used many incest issues and scenes that I found it disturbing at times. The family consisted of two parents and four children, Julie age seventeen, Jack age fifteen, Sue age thirteen, and Tom age six.Jack is the one narrating the story.The family was barely functional and was struggling to find some kind of emotional balance. The father soon dies of a heart attack and the mother is sickly and she too dies. They did have a funeral for their father but when their mother died soon after they had to decide if they should have reported it but feared being separated and sent to foster homes. Julie and Jack decided to bury their mother in a bed of cement in the cellar.It was an unstable situation where Tom reverts to being a clinging baby and insists to be dressed as a girl. Than Sue withdraws to her room where she reads and writes in her diary. However, Jack becomes confused because he is maturing sexually and is drawn to his older sister for satisfaction and she doesn’t discourage him. Plus, Julie is the one above the others and becomes easy flexible with rules, she is an athletic beauty to whom the others look up to.There were incest scenes even before the parents died. The children had no one to guide them and they continued to live in the rundown area of the town in a ramshackle old house.

If you're hoping that this book with be a little creepy and a little disturbing then don't bother purchasing. The ending is unfinished and unthought out any adult themes are barely mentioned or described and are written from the point of someone who seems like they've never had a sexual encounter in their lives. Most of the book is just bantering between the siblings arguing over a few months time about normal everyday things in the main characters fight with going through puberty being smelly and unliked by his siblings. nothing about this book is creepier disturbing aside from the fact that their mother dies and they decide to bury her in a trunk full of cement instead of calling somebody. Don't waste your time there are much creepier and disturbing books out there than this one.

This short novel, the author's first written some thirty years ago, is a brief, but provocative, look at how a family of teens and a small brother cope, or do not cope, with the death of both parents within a short time period. The family of Julie, Jack, Sue, and Tom, ages 17, 15, 13, and 6, was barely functional, but now they are forced to make decisions and interact in ways which cannot withstand rational scrutiny but do result in them drawing together to some degree.Julie and Jack are central to this story. Jack, the narrator, was helping his father mix concrete for a garden path when he died from over exertion. But Julie is the driving force in this drama. She is a lithesome, athletic beauty to whom the others gravitate. She and Jack, fearful of nebulous authorities, decide that their mother, her death occurring after weeks of being confined to bed, must be concealed in a bed of concrete in the cellar.It is an unstable situation; most of them are struggling to find some sort of emotional balance. Young Tom reverts to being a clinging baby and insists on being dressed as a girl; Sue withdraws to her room where she reads and writes in her diary; and Jack, maturing sexually, finds himself increasingly drawn to his older sister, which she does little to discourage. The author, despite the abnormalities, seems to be generally sympathetic towards the efforts of these kids to survive, but there is a pervasive sense that all of the various cracks in their arrangement will inevitably result in its collapse.

The book came super fast, which was a plus.Book Review:I didn't understand the point of this book. It was a very quick read. It resembled the Flowers in the Attic story, but it was weirder, and boring. I know that The Cement Garden novel came first, but still. I would have maybe understood the story better if there was more to it. It just felt like the story didn't add up for me. I mean incest is a very odd subject, and kind of hard to read through. I guess I just didnt understand why there was incest to begin with. I mean the children in the story go through awful things, and are left to their own. But it's like none of the characters had emotion or relatable qualities.All in all, I love reading. I dont like to say I regret buying or reading a book. But I didn't enjoy this read. I was ready for it to be done the whole time reading it. Just not what I had expected is what I have to say.

Sometimes short fiction is the best fiction and I think it's the mark of a great writer when they can capture a world and the lives within that world in the space of less than 200 pages. Clocking in at 152 pages The Cement Garden is on the border between long short story or short novel but either way it's top quality writing.An English family living in the rundown part of town lose their father to a heart attack then their mother to sickness. The children hide their newly orphaned status and try to continue life as best they can. They experience all the usual trials of puberty and growing up with no guidance as they idle away the days in their ramshackle old house. Dark undercurrents of sexuality, incest and loss bubble away beneath the surface of this book and the author portrays what life is like when you have no-one very well.Easily read in a single sitting this book will haunt you for weeks afterwards.

A bit disturbing. Normally fine with thrillers but did not like that children were the main participants. Also did not enjoy the incestuous themes.

Would definitely recommend this book because I thought it was a very insightful and interesting book and it really opens your mind and raises awareness of incest. I know a lot of people would say that an incestuous relationship between brother and sister is gross but in my opinion 'love is love', and I think it's sad that so many people are so misinformed and ignorant about consensual adult incest and as long as there's no rape or sexual abuse involved then I can't see what's wrong with two adults loving each other whether they happen to be related or not as long as they are not hurting anyone else. Adult, consensual incest is one more taboo that needs to be better understood and broken just like homosexuality now is. I say live and let live because life is too short.

Philip Larkin famously described the adverse affect parents can have on a child; but omitted to mention that siblings can be even worse. The ones in this book being a case in point. Poor little Tom aged four, if left at the mercy of his adolescent (and how...) older brother Jack and sisters Julie and Sue, when they are orphaned by inadequate parents. Events unfold during a summer heat wave, horrific events that seem to take on a ghastly momentum of their own, which glues your eyes to the page and makes you wonder at the same time what kind of a mind could think up such mesmerising, skin-crawling grossness.

Uncomfortable reading but written with the skill of a storyteller easing you into dark themes and happenings. A hot, stinking claustrophobia envelopes all.

Beautifully and succinctly told tale of four children in a big house with a dark secret. For one hot summer they find themselves freed from usual constraints, leaving them to live life in freefall, dreamily detached from society... until Derek pops up. A reminder that the novel can go to places no other medium can, and get away with it.