Amazon.co.uk Review
Margaret Atwood charts the psychological process of memory as compulsion and memory as a healing act through the character of Elaine Risley, an artist who returns to her home town of Toronto for a retrospective of her work. Elaine's visit triggers thoughts of her childhood with all the urgency of a bad rash. Dominating her reflections are her childhood "friends", three girls who wreak havoc on Elaine's self-esteem. Having spent her early childhood on the road with an entomologist father, a less than traditional mother and a brother more concerned with snot and snakes than the intricate behaviour codes of girls, the young Elaine is vulnerable to the indirect aggression of Cordelia, the ringleader of the group who seeks to improve her. Through Elaine's experiences, Margaret Atwood turns a keen and ironic eye on the training of females in North American culture: "All I have to do is sit on the floor and cut frying pans out of the Eaton's Catalogue with embroidery scissors, and say I've done it badly." The self-effacement of these girl-children barely masks a need for power that erupts all too often in cruel forms of play. This is a story in which the lines between victims and oppressors blur, in which forgiveness becomes an act of gaining power. Through humour, pain and insight, she makes us see, with surprise and recognition, details from childhood we may well have forgotten. --Chris Kellett, From 500 Great Books by Women

Ten out of ten for this book. Atwood is faultless in reproducing the effects of litte-girl bullying. She writes the things we think no one ever knows we think about. She knows how humans work and interact, fascinating and sometimes unpleasant reading.

This book is going on a mini ray

Pookledo
CatrionaAnnale
nuttymum30

This has been on my wishlist for ages. Thankyou for offering it up as a ray.

Just a quick note to say that I still have this book and I'm really sorry it is taking so long.

An unexpected house move is taking up most of my time but I'm managing to get a few chapters read here and there and really enjoying the book.

Things should hopefully settle down really soon and I'll get on wih reading the rest of it asap.

Phew!

I've taken this book wheverever I've gone for the past few months. My mind really hasn't been able to kep a logical though for a whilst due to one thing and another but I finally finished it. Hooray!

I've been wanting to read this since I read "The Handmaids Tale" and I have to say that I wasn't disappointed.

Thankyou for sending this out in a ray, and apologies to everyone behind me in the ray for taking so long.

PMing CatrionaAnnale for an address to send this book on to.

All parcelled up and ready to go next time I pass the post office.

Arrived earlier this week. Currently number three on Mount Toobie and it may take a while to get started as one of the ones before it is 'East of Eden'. However I know that nuttymum303 is getting something else posted to her tomorrow, so that should be OK ...

I can't imagine I got as much out of this when I read it soon after its publication as I have now. It was the first book of Atwood's I read, and, having recently read more of her earlier work, I maintain that she has improved with time.

Everyone describes this story as being about bullying, but a good third of the book is beyond that, with Elaine having cut out the past. I would disagree that the effects are readable in all her later relationships, and therefore think that this doesn't show Atwood at the height of her powers. Nonetheless, I think that, apart from the iconic 'Handmaid's Tale', this is the first book of hers that has not dated.

Have e-mailed nuttymum303 for her address

RELEASE NOTES:

In the post to nuttymum303 this morning