Friday, January 8, 2010

Quickie Book Review: "Penelopiad" by Margaret Atwood

I've never read anything by Margaret Atwood, but after reading my friend Marie's quickie review on her blog, Debriefed, I might have to add Atwood to my queue:

I was pleasantly surprised by this different Atwood style. This novella tells the tale of Penelope, wife of Odysseus, and her side of the Odyssey events.

What captured my attention and kept me flipping the pages as fast as my reading eyes would allow, were interludes by the twelve maid chorus. Twelve maids that were believed to have been disloyal (wrong!) and were hanged by no other than Odysseus himself. They tell us their version of the story from beyond the western horizon. The mental image of their feet twitching is scarring.

Just the right amount of humor, wit and eerie feeling, à la Atwood, of course.

I give it :
4/5 on the scale of Awesome
5/5 on the scale of Something-Different-Worth-A-Shot

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the link, Danielle!
    I love, love, love Atwood!
    Other amazing Atwood reads :
    The Handmaid's Tale - Classic and all time fave!
    Oryx and Crake / The Year of the Flood - Highly addictive and really makes you think about humanity and how messed up we are.
    The Edible Woman - This one took me a couple reads to "digest" but all well worth it in the end.

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  2. Awesome review. Made me want to read it (if I didn't have 10,000 books sitting on my floor staring me down). Let's just make it Book # 10,0001 on my TBR list. :-P

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