Linguistically, this novel was fantastic. Atwood's prose is wonderful; her strange metaphors and similes never ceased to amaze me. However, other than the language, I didn't come away from this novel with much. The story line was barely interesting, and the characters were irritating. I'm certain that in two years, I will have forgotten what this book was even about. ( )

Read this while in the Magdalen Islands in 2008. Depressing story, but great story-telling. To re-read. ( )

While certainly not my favorite Atwood tale (that title goes to The Handmaid's Tale, this was a wonderfully beautiful, dark story of a woman trying to figure out who she is and why. How X is able to delve into her past, figuring out why she has become who she is, with little attachment to relationships is a story that most women have experienced, on at least some level. No, not every woman is faced with the pain that X has had to face, or the desire to simply leave everything behind, but I would bet that in each of our lives, we have had a need to become a detective to figure out our own life.

This is a novel that needs to be read on various levels. An understanding that it is an exploration of X's mind and memories - and how they affect her current situations, along with being an exploration of X's current life and her needs to become someone knew, defined by herself as opposed to all those around her, is necessary to getting anything out of the work. It is not a straight time-line story, nor is any of our lives. We all fluctuate between the present and the past, trying to figure out how the past has impacted our present.

Atwood does an admirable job of writing this process out, in my opinion. ( )

I don't know what to say about this book other than that I found it beautiful. Margaret Atwood knows people, and all their messed-up ways; the ones in here are often annoying, but always people you know-- probably because you could become them very easily. Or at least that's what you fear. How do we become complicit in terrible things? One of many questions Atwood tackles here, though on a much smaller scale than in The Handmaid's Tale. I could read her all day; every sentence is a gem.

I have been trying to get a hold of more of Atwood's books, as I really enjoyed The Blind Assassin, The Handmaid's Tale and The Edible Woman. This one did not grab me as much, it is very dark in comparison to some of her others. X returns to her childhood home in a remote area of Canada after receiving notice that her father has gone missing. She goes with her boyfriend and 2 other friends. She hasn't had much contact with her family since she's left, and also she has left behind a husband and a child. A tough book at times, but a voyage of discovery for her unnamed main character. ( )