I like a lot of Atwood’s book (esp The Blind Assassin), and I can see WHY I should appreciate this one, but it just didn’t work me me on lots of levels. Firstly, it’s simply too self-conscious – trying too hard to discuss various issues concerning madness, civillisation, identity blah, blah. Secondly, it’s too disjointed. I know that this is supposed to be representative of the protagonist’s failing sanity, but it just came out as a lot of old heavily-loaded gobbledegook. And thirdly, the characters were all unpalatable. I didn’t feel a shred of empathy for any of them. Again, this may have been deliberate, but I would have expected at least some shades of grey.

This one is going back to Oxfam this weekend.