All a bit too grim for my liking, maybe I just wasn't in the right mood for it. The writing didn't live up to other novels of Atwood's which I've liked. ( )

Happiness and cheer abound: Sure it does. It is very much not a good idea for a reader to attempt to psychoanalyze an author through their own works, because not only will you probably come to the wrong conclusions, but the ones you do come up with will probably creep you out just a little bit. To whit: Margaret Atwood probably is a delightfully cheery woman who quite enjoys life and all she encounters . . . however that sure doesn't come across in her novels. In her best novels the misery her characters suffer often eventually dovetails into a gloriously insightful epiphany of sorts. And in other cases you often feel like just guilty reading the book, after a while you get the impression by continuing to read you're furthering the character's Job-like troubles. Life Before Man was a bit of a downer but at least it was spread over four people . . . here poor Rennie has to take it all on the chin herself. Young woman journalist Rennie is sent to a Caribbean island to write a vacation type story . . . what happens is quite simply the vacation from hell. There's really no other way to put it. Nobody is what they seem, Rennie is totally out of place and things start getting very serious before anyone knows what's going on. However if that's all there was to the book then it would simply be a matter of plodding on to see what Ms Atwood is going to do next to poor Rennie. To save the story, Atwood details Rennie's crumbling relationship with her boyfriend, as well as her relationships with both her family and others . . . these quasi-flashbacks (some are given as monologues, though I'm not sure who she's talking to) are interspersed throughout the novel and are where the story truly shines. When she wants to Atwood can get right to the heart of a person and choose the exact right words to get the emotions right. The ending alone is one of the best examples of a stark prose style I've ever seen. So ignore the quasi-political intrigue plot and instead focus on a masterful character study by one of the few authors who know how to get such things right. The feelings she reveals may be painful but you can't argue that she's all that far off.

Rennie Wilford, a young journalist running from her life, takes an assignment to a Caribbean island and tumbles into a world where no one is what they seem. When the burnt-out Yankee Paul (does he smuggle dope or hustle for the CIA?) offers her a no-hooks, no strings affair, she is caught up in a lethal web of corruption.

Unless you just want to read all Atwood's works, I'd skip this one. It isn't bad, but is seams cheaper, rushed through, and just not crafted with the care and brilliance of other Atwood novels. ( )

I enjoyed this book, though it wasn't the best that I've read by this author. The book was well-written and I felt like Rennie was a real person as I read her story. ( )