I was really disappointed in this one. The first of her books I've read and I really didn't enjoy it at all. Not sure what the big deal is. ( )

This is Atwood's first novel, a story about a women slowly losing grip with reality. Written in 1969, the gender issues and stereotypes of the time make the book feel dated and somewhat stale. Still, Atwood is a wonderful writer, and the book paints vivid word pictures replete with emotion. The feeling of gradually increasing disconnectedness and loss of control experienced by the main character becomes ever more palpable, and I, at least, found the book heavy going, like reading whilst sleepwalking, in the latter third of the work. I would recommend the book only to hard core students of the era, or to Atwood fans, but many may enjoy it. ( )

This book is about the increasingly alienated Marian, her life, friends, and food. This book is written as though it were any little story, but there is really a lot of depth here. Marian's suppression of herself and her own desires and needs in favour of those of her boyfriend lead to an eating disorder, at least on the surface. But there is another layer, that of consumerism. In a consumeristic society, isn't the consumer also the consumed? Consumed by advertising and the constant push to buy, to use, to own, just for the profit of businesses. As the alienated Marian begins to identify with the food she consumes, she is projecting on to the food the very problems she faces as a woman and as a consumer - "You are very appetizing" she says to her food, "But that's what you get for being food." I found this book very cathartic in it's main character learning to not be alienated by life, to not be consumed by consumerism, to escape being the Edible Woman. ( )

I found myself really enjoying this book and staying up far too late to finish it but trying to think of how to explain why is really hard.

The setting is 1960's Ontario and you live several months in the life of Marian who seems to be living the older dream of a woman's life (job for a while, then marriage, quitting work and being a decorative adornment for her husband and a baby making machine) but the closer she gets to saying "I do" the more detached from her body and gradually the world around her she becomes.

She is surrounded by various well portrayed characters: the friend who really is just a baby-making machine now, despite her degree; the friend who wants to become the same, initially without a man in the baby's life; the variations on amazingly patronising men despite their having next to nothing else in common.

And that, I think, is where it's really scary. This book was set around the time I was born but the society it describes is actually more alien to me than reading fantasy and sci-fi. Was it really like that back then? Jane Austen has feistier and more independent women, even the ones that just want to get married, than are portrayed here.

That is part of the fascination, the rest is the lovely language at various points that suck you in so that whilst part of me was wondering if Marian was insane I could still feel her as a real presence in the world and follow that journey through this alien world of 40 years ago. ( )

Written when she was 24 which shows in the naiveity of the plot and images , a short novel that has themes around eating disorders and the way men control women. I was reminded that married women were not expected nor ofen allowed to work until surprisingly recently. The youth of the author and/or the protagonist was clear - she was horrified that an older woman was not wearing any make up - not even a touch of lipstick. ( )