Reviews with content warning for Death - The Blind Assassin

Reviews tagging 'Death'

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

16 reviews

milele23's review

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

0.25

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dlrosebyh's review against another edition

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emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Listen, before you all come at me, I love Atwood, but this was such a miss for me. It was just so dull. I like a lot of her books, so I expected to like this one, but I really didn’t.

Margaret Atwood blends romance, science fiction, and gothic tension into one story in The Blind Assassin. The novel opens with the unexplained death of Laura Chase, a young lady who may have committed herself in 1945. Many years thereafter, Iris, Laura's sister, narrates her recollections of their early years and the noteworthy demises that had interspersed their affluent and colorful family's past. Chapters from the scandalous novel that made Laura famous, in which two illegal lovers entertain themselves with a story about a blind killer on a far-off planet, are woven into Iris's story. The mysteries that have plagued the Chase family for a long time are progressively revealed by these intricately detailed stories inside stories, culminating in an incredible and thought-provoking conclusion.

I just found the characters too dull to even care about. Not even the forbidden love aspect was entertaining (and I love forbidden romance).

I don’t know. Her writing style here just felt so childish compared to her previous novels, and that put me off so bad. It had a brilliant premise, but a horrible execution. Still love her though.

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emmonsannae's review against another edition

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mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Even down to the last twenty pages, this book wasn’t what I expected. It did move slowly, and I wasn’t especially invested in it until page 350 or so, which is a long wait. But the construction of the book (a novel within a novel) is interesting enough to make up for its slow pace. M.A.’s writing is arresting as well—even when I wasn’t invested in the story I enjoyed her telling of it. And the ending was a gut punch that made the early reading feel like a very worthwhile use of time.

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isabezza's review

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challenging informative mysterious slow-paced

2.75

I love Margaret Atwood's writing - this book contains her signature imagination and characterisation, as well as a moral question founded in American history. However, this book requires an active brain so I found it useful to research some of the themes whilst reading (e.g. themes of money, women's roles, the great depression, war, social context.) This is a heavy book with huge twists only revealed at the end, and changes to how readers may interpret the characters. This novel takes a lot of energy to comprehend, involving multiple narratives which take a while to understand and stitch together (Laura Chase's novel, Iris' narrative in the present, and Iris' narrative in the past.) Certainly a slow read and not one I may recommend for enjoyment but I certainly learnt a lot from this novel.

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