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A review by syan22
Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood
My first Atwood, so I really didn't know what to expect. What I got was a chilling and confronting read... I was literally so spooked and speechless when Cordelia threw Elaine's beanie off the bridge. Children can be so, so, so nasty. There's a lot of touching moments, like the memories of Stephen and meeting Ben... meeting Ben was only a page long but it was like a breath of relief and hope after you read about the tumultuous and failed relationship with Jon.
A great mix of retrospection and introspection - a great deal of lines were underlined and then pages dog-earred because of the profound effect they had on me... the haunting impact of Cordelia, the recurring object and motif of the cat's eye marble, suppression of traumatic memories as a method of coping, using self-mutilation (lip biting, chewing up cuticles/fingers) as a method to tether yourself to the present... wow. And the parts about Elaine talking about how she, as a mother, would desperately look for the signs of her daughters being tormented.... heartbreaking. So many messages and things implied. Sometimes, some things don't need to be explicitly stated. This adds to the chilling effect that I got from this.
The story-telling is separated by memory and the 'present' and can be disjointed when not done well but it works. There were a few typos in my copy (smh virago) but each sentence was so cleverly crafted and effective in evoking a feeling of some sort. Need some more time to process this.
A great mix of retrospection and introspection - a great deal of lines were underlined and then pages dog-earred because of the profound effect they had on me... the haunting impact of Cordelia, the recurring object and motif of the cat's eye marble, suppression of traumatic memories as a method of coping, using self-mutilation (lip biting, chewing up cuticles/fingers) as a method to tether yourself to the present... wow. And the parts about Elaine talking about how she, as a mother, would desperately look for the signs of her daughters being tormented.... heartbreaking. So many messages and things implied. Sometimes, some things don't need to be explicitly stated. This adds to the chilling effect that I got from this.
The story-telling is separated by memory and the 'present' and can be disjointed when not done well but it works. There were a few typos in my copy (smh virago) but each sentence was so cleverly crafted and effective in evoking a feeling of some sort. Need some more time to process this.