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3.29 AVERAGE
3.29 AVERAGE
Well, I'm sure there's a point to this, but I don't quite get it. This book is just sad and ended so abruptly. I am going to have to stick with Atwood's science/speculative fiction from now on!
This is a story revolving cheating, a lot of it and not very likeble characters. Not my favorite Margaret Atwood. This was one of her earlier works and I do think she's gotten much better, but the writing is still solid. I just didn't like this because of the subject of cheating. The main character is married but both of them cheat on the side. Her resent lover commits sucide. And her husband have found a new love in her co-worker and suddenly that's a problem. Meh not my thing.
This book was slow for me to get into, but when I sat down to really dig in, it was Atwood as usual. Painting characters who have real thoughts and actions--whose behavior confuses them (like my own behavior sometimes confuses me). This books I would say is about the patterns we find ourselves in. Relationship patterns with significant others, children, relatives--and how it all just breaks down.
I would be hard pressed to say who the protagonist of this novel is. There are three main characters, and they are all so real I can't say that I was rooting for any of them. They were selfish and petty, but caring and loving and scared too. Just like characters outside of books.
I would be hard pressed to say who the protagonist of this novel is. There are three main characters, and they are all so real I can't say that I was rooting for any of them. They were selfish and petty, but caring and loving and scared too. Just like characters outside of books.
3.5 stars.
A longterm married couple with children have several affairs, and proceeds to wreck the lives of people around them with their reluctance to let go of their marriage.
I enjoyed the writing style, but found the characters a bit infuriating
A longterm married couple with children have several affairs, and proceeds to wreck the lives of people around them with their reluctance to let go of their marriage.
I enjoyed the writing style, but found the characters a bit infuriating
Such a beautifully written book and a very realistic peek into the lives of three people in a love triangle, but nothing much really happened and I only really finished it to be able to say I did. At a different time in my life, it might've affected me differently.
I keep reading early Margaret Atwood thinking it'll be as good as mid-to-late-career Margaret Atwood, and I keep being disappointed. I expect I'll learn, about the time I run out of early Margaret Atwood books. I'm pretty sure she isn't going to write any more books in the 1970s. This one had the same problems I've had with the other ones — plotlessness, shapelessness, a collection of characters with few redeeming facets, only one of them with any spine or sense of purpose. As a study in passivity and frustration, this book works fine, but I feel as aimless and weak as the protagonists for having doggedly finished it.
This was my second attempt and I just can't get into it. Both times I made about halfway before giving up, so I feel like I read the whole thing anyway. A lot of telling, I couldn't really discern a plot, wasn't engaging at all. Shame. No rating.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
A book where nobody is happy and everybody cheats on everybody else (in many cases (but not all), with consent by the partner), the title is both ironic and a little funny. Like many Atwood novels, the book is heavy with the lives of women, with just a few men to act as foils.
I don’t think it was the intent that I felt the most for the husband, Nate, of the main couple. His wife Elizabeth regrets marrying him, and initiated an open relationship so they could remain together by appearances for their two daughters and society, but she could still sleep around (and encourage him to do the same, albeit imo he did this with clearly less interest). Nate was trained as a lawyer, but was struggling to make ends meet as a classic wooden toy maker, as he saw this as being more fulfilling, while still benefitting society. It was truly endearing, but leaves Elizabeth as the primary breadwinner with her job at the Royal Ontario Museum.
Things start to fall apart when Nate ends up with Elizabeth’s coworker, Lesja, who doesn’t really get people, preferring to fantasize about a life amongst the dinosaurs. Elizabeth finds a new lover after her previous lover (also a co-worker) commits suicide, and their carefully crafted life begins to strain as Nate and Elizabeth both demand more from each other.
It wasn’t my favourite Atwood book, but I was eager to find out how it ended and kept reading.
I was on edge for the characters during this whole book. Ms Atwood, there is a reason that you are a favorite.
Atwood certainly has a knack for conjuring up the awkwardness and discomfort of crumbling relationships. These people are dysfunctional and in pain, but not annoyingly so.