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3.65 AVERAGE
3.65 AVERAGE
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I don't know what it is about Margaret Atwood, but she always writes characters that make me feel just a little bit okay with being the worse parts of myself. All of the characters I have read by her are so beautifully human that it hurts. I have not often read characters that are so openly themselves to the reader even as they struggle to present a uniform face to the world, often to their detriment. This was quite a different book than what I expected from the beginning
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I just finished reading Cat's Eye the other week and I was amazed with the similarities between the two works when reading Lady Oracle. Part of me wonders if Ms. Atwood had a traumatic childhood experience with a mean group of slightly older girls leaving her for the worst in a ravine type area that was frequented by what her mother warned her were the 'bad men'. Because that exact scenario happened in both stories, and the leader of the gang of mean girls re-entered the protagonists life after a period of time where she experiences some change and can interact with her old tormentor in a new, more empowered way.
There were parts of Lady Oracle that I liked, but a lot of the things that I found similar to Cat's Eye (the female artist who unwittingly becomes an icon, people put words into her mouth, she has a strange relationship with an eccentric male artist, people read things in her work that were never meant to be there, she looks back on her childhood) I think were done better in the later novel. It makes sense. Atwood was more experienced and more developped when writing Cat's Eye.
There was a lot of humour in this novel, and I enjoyed the small sections of the gothic romances that Joan is writing within the novel. But everything was just too unresolved. If questions had have been answered at the end of the novel, such as who actually left Joan the dead animals and notes, and who the guy that shows up at the end was then this novel would have been a 4 to me. But I felt too frustrated at the end of it all to go higher than a 3. Teasing novels can only go so far before they become annoying.
There were parts of Lady Oracle that I liked, but a lot of the things that I found similar to Cat's Eye (the female artist who unwittingly becomes an icon, people put words into her mouth, she has a strange relationship with an eccentric male artist, people read things in her work that were never meant to be there, she looks back on her childhood) I think were done better in the later novel. It makes sense. Atwood was more experienced and more developped when writing Cat's Eye.
There was a lot of humour in this novel, and I enjoyed the small sections of the gothic romances that Joan is writing within the novel. But everything was just too unresolved. If
I cannot explain, why I gave this book a higher rating than the other Margaret Atwood’s book I had read earlier. It is based on my enjoyment of the read. Plus I’m becoming a fan of Atwood’s. I would like to read more from her soon.
A bit tricky because I can't think of anyone to whom I could recommend this, but I rather loved it.
A good book for the most part— about a woman who is fat and unpopular as a child at school—I liked this part especially well—and then develops a variety of different identities as an adult and has love affairs, gets wrapped up with some crazy but ineffective Canadian communists, and finally fakes her own death and runs off to Italy. I though the book very good—but I don’t like nor do I understand the ending, thoug hit was tru[e] to the central character—it wasn’t as “real” as the first part.