I liked most the conceit of this short novel: the idea that a person can hear everything (and taste some things) but not take any action. Because the narrator, inside the womb of his mother has to imagine the world outside, that world was vividly described - the dirty house, the sunshine, the wine. The story is based on / inspired by Hamlet which I don't know very well. That didn't matter at all, but what irritated me was the Shakespearean syntax that McEwan uses. The narrator plays delightfully with language, but the style of it jarred. And there was one plot point that didn't quite work:

Spoiler

at the end, in order to stop his mother and uncle escaping from the police, the narrator causes his own birth. Why didn't the narrator cause his own birth when he heard his father drinking the poisoned smoothy? Obviously if he'd done that we wouldn't have a story, but it's too easy an ending for me.