My rating : 3 stars
Blurb
Imprisoned by walls of their own construction, here are three people, each in midlife, in midcrisis, forced to make choices--after the rules have changed. Elizabeth, with her controlled sensuality, her suppressed rage, is married to the wrong man. She has just lost her latest lover to suicide. Nate, her gentle, indecisive husband, is planning to leave her for Lesje, a perennial innocent who prefers dinosaurs to men. Hanging over them all is the ghost of Elizabeth's dead lover...and the dizzying threat of three lives careening inevitably toward the same climax.My opinion
The story focuses around a married couple and their love affairs that they try to fit in around making life seem normal for the sake of their children. The married couple remain set in their ways, but these ways seem to make those around them go insane. The book is told from three perspectives: Elizabeth’s, Nate’s, and Lesje’s (pronounced Lashia).it is an interesting read. It presents the complexity of the human mind. How individuals try to scheme about many things making their lives more than interesting (uninteresting).Margaret Atwood likes to play with language a lot which can be interesting but also quite distracting.
While I did enjoy reading this story, it was so long. I wanted the book to end sooner, which is never a good thing. Not my favorite Atwood, but not terrible overall.
Quotes
“I wish I didn't have to think about you. You wanted to impress me; well, I'm not impressed, I'm disgusted...You wanted to make damn good and sure I'd never be able to turn over in bed again without feeling that body beside me, not there but tangible, like a leg that's been cut off. Gone but the place still hurts.”
“They meet in church basements and offer bandages to those wounded by the shrapnel of exploding families.”
“China does not exist. Nevertheless, she longs to be there.”
