Scan barcode
A review by folkmoss
My Evil Mother by Margaret Atwood
3.0
It's a good, sweet, and oftentimes unsettling little story about the troubled relationship between a mother and a daughter. The mother embodies the archetype of the "local witch", not very friendly at all, mocked and ridiculed by the community they are a part of, but to whom the people resort when needed. However, she's also not completely friendly to her own daughter, and as a reader you end up resenting her too--which is an amazing thing to achieve as a writer. She's a very flawed mother. We love to see.
The daughter, on the other hand, is nothing of the sort. She's a plain Jane with modest dreams and achievements in life. Her mother's eccentricities skipped a generation. We follow her POV as she grows up and transitions into different relationship phases with her mom, which is an interesting arch to follow in such a short story, but to me, the ending kinda ruined the point of the whole endeavor. It left me feeling like something had been taken from me as a reader. It's an enjoyable enough short story, but the ending makes it lose an entire star for me.
The daughter, on the other hand, is nothing of the sort. She's a plain Jane with modest dreams and achievements in life. Her mother's eccentricities skipped a generation. We follow her POV as she grows up and transitions into different relationship phases with her mom, which is an interesting arch to follow in such a short story, but to me, the ending kinda ruined the point of the whole endeavor. It left me feeling like something had been taken from me as a reader. It's an enjoyable enough short story, but the ending makes it lose an entire star for me.