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chrysemys 's review for:
The Heart Goes Last
by Margaret Atwood
I like Margaret Atwood's work so much better when she's writing about a dystopian near-future society than when she's writing about women being evil to one another. So the fact that this is the former is a big point in its favor.
The Heart Goes Last appears to be in a similar universe as Oryx and Crake, although not as far in the future. It is set in a semi-utopian prison/community ostensibly created to help alleviate the poverty of those who volunteer to spend the rest of their lives in this community, spending half of their lives in the prison setting, engaged in the production of various items and half their lives in a company town that serves the prison. The protagonists are Stan and the impossibly upbeat and naïve Charmaine, a married couple desperate for money and a better life.
I had a hard time with the premise that anyone would fall for such an obviously impossible setup- clearly, a scam involved in activities far more nefarious than knitting teddy bears. However, suspending disbelief, the first ~2/3 of the story was gripping and well-told. At the turning point in the story, the mood abruptly shifted and it became more of a lighthearted action story than dystopian nightmare/psychological thriller. I was not a big fan of the way the end of the book was presented, the ending seemed too long, too soppy, and the "shocker" at the very end was very predictable, although perhaps Atwood's intent was that not the reader but the protagonist be surprised.
So I guess my overall impression was that the story had a lot of potential but the premise should have been tweaked and the conclusion should have been completely different.
The Heart Goes Last appears to be in a similar universe as Oryx and Crake, although not as far in the future. It is set in a semi-utopian prison/community ostensibly created to help alleviate the poverty of those who volunteer to spend the rest of their lives in this community, spending half of their lives in the prison setting, engaged in the production of various items and half their lives in a company town that serves the prison. The protagonists are Stan and the impossibly upbeat and naïve Charmaine, a married couple desperate for money and a better life.
I had a hard time with the premise that anyone would fall for such an obviously impossible setup- clearly, a scam involved in activities far more nefarious than knitting teddy bears. However, suspending disbelief, the first ~2/3 of the story was gripping and well-told. At the turning point in the story, the mood abruptly shifted and it became more of a lighthearted action story than dystopian nightmare/psychological thriller. I was not a big fan of the way the end of the book was presented, the ending seemed too long, too soppy, and the "shocker" at the very end was very predictable, although perhaps Atwood's intent was that not the reader but the protagonist be surprised.
So I guess my overall impression was that the story had a lot of potential but the premise should have been tweaked and the conclusion should have been completely different.