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A review by bookph1le
I'm Starved for You by Margaret Atwood
3.0
Not sure how I feel about this. Will need to marinate on it a bit.
Full review:
Having recently read The Handmaid's Tale, I was very intrigued when I saw this on the Kindle Singles list. Though I've owned a Kindle for some time, I'd yet to try a Single, so what better than one by the author of the phenomenal Handmaid's Tale? Unfortunately, this story doesn't live up to its predecessor. Spoilers to follow.
I really loved the initial concept of this book. The way Atwood frames it, it seems like the perfect dystopian setting. Take some people, deceive them into believing that a prison exchange scenario is brilliant and voila! As with The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood does a good job of taking something that seems a little far fetched but manipulating it in such a way that it eventually sounds pretty reasonable. I really bought this aspect of the work because I could imagine that, with the proper branding, people who are struggling might just buy into such a concept.
However, I think the work lost focus from here. It seems to be two things at once: a dystopian view of the solving of social inequalities that is also a work about obsession. The more Stan fixated on Jasmine, the more this work lost me. I could see where Stan's longing for Jasmine was symbolic of his longing to break out of his seemingly perfect world, his longing for a spice that was lacking from his bland existence. But the balance seemed off to me, to the extent that the work ending up feeling more like a work of sexual obsession than one making a statement about society at large.
Full review:
Having recently read The Handmaid's Tale, I was very intrigued when I saw this on the Kindle Singles list. Though I've owned a Kindle for some time, I'd yet to try a Single, so what better than one by the author of the phenomenal Handmaid's Tale? Unfortunately, this story doesn't live up to its predecessor. Spoilers to follow.
I really loved the initial concept of this book. The way Atwood frames it, it seems like the perfect dystopian setting. Take some people, deceive them into believing that a prison exchange scenario is brilliant and voila! As with The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood does a good job of taking something that seems a little far fetched but manipulating it in such a way that it eventually sounds pretty reasonable. I really bought this aspect of the work because I could imagine that, with the proper branding, people who are struggling might just buy into such a concept.
However, I think the work lost focus from here. It seems to be two things at once: a dystopian view of the solving of social inequalities that is also a work about obsession. The more Stan fixated on Jasmine, the more this work lost me. I could see where Stan's longing for Jasmine was symbolic of his longing to break out of his seemingly perfect world, his longing for a spice that was lacking from his bland existence. But the balance seemed off to me, to the extent that the work ending up feeling more like a work of sexual obsession than one making a statement about society at large.