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Dec 17, 2009

Katie rated it:

I am a big Margaret Atwood fan, mainly for her writing. Her books don't always have a lot of plot and sometimes I find her endings too pat, but I still devour her books for the language. Lady Oracle has one of my favorite beginnings to a book:

"I planned my death carefully; unlike my life, which meandered along from one thing to another, despite my feeble attempts to control it. My life had a tendency to spread, get flabby, to scroll and festoon life the frame of a baroque mirror More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Megan rated it:

Sickly funny, in a way that's typically attributed only to men. The book begins with the narrator's (a writer of Harlequin romances) own faked death and becomes, finally, a woman writer enjoying her woman-ness, fat jokes and all. You could talk to this book over coffee about things that matter in your life, and it wouldn't start crying and gushing about Oprah. Plus it's got a delicious title. I can't believe it is a second novel.

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Sep 26, 2007

Lissa rated it:

I love Margaret Atwood and she can do (almost) no wrong, so it's probably not shocking that I really liked this book. After all, I have read (in order): The Handmaid's Tale (multiple times), Cat's Eye, Robber Bride (I should go back and re-read these as it's been a long time) The Blind Assassin, Alias Grace and The Penelopiad.

Lady Oracle treads over some of what most readers of Margaret Atwood will realize is familiar ground. The premise of the book is that Joan Foster, a woman who f More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Sep 11, 2007

Ree rated it:

I read lady oracle to complete my lit degree. Well, this one is nice storytelling with metafiction and some fantasies. Atwood always build her character with her alienation towards her surrounding, to let her character find her own identity.

This character, Joan Foster is built to overcome her problem of writing Gothic Romance, which seems very non-intellectual works compared to her husband's, Arthur, an activist who likes to stamp footnotes in his politic books.

Joan is o More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 13, 2008

Catherine rated it:

This book really pissed me off. I guess there's no real character arc. The main character starts out weak, unself-aware and just really messed up (for plenty of good reason, so I did sympathize with her) -- but nothing has really changed by the end of the book. She's still messed up and unself-aware. Ugh. The whole book made me feel really impatient and uncomfortable. I felt kind of sick and nervous the whole time I was reading it, as if doom was just around the corner. That probably says a lot More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Sep 23, 2007

Linda rated it:

This is one of those books that makes you feel kind of intellectual, but doesn't take any effort at all to slip into. Who can't relate to wanting to escape the life that you've built, or let happen, around you, at least from time to time? Atwood is such an accomplished writer that the themes are almost secondary to her skill with the language. A pure pleasure to read.

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Feb 25, 2008

Allan rated it:

After reading this book, I feel like I have to re-read it again. The story is reavealed to to the reader in such a way that you might not exactly know what's going on until chapters later. Throughout the book, you feel as if something underlying is going on. And at the end, you just want to psychoanalyze the main character.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Ash rated it:

This is my favourite of Atwood's books, probably because in some ways it's the silliest. Joan Foster is melodramatic and hapless, but entirely loveable. Plus, there's a mystery! And a fake death! And a secret life in a foreign villa! It's kind of like reading a romance novel, only a lot more with the intentional funny.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Aug 15, 2007

Amy rated it:

Atwood's books are all a bit quirky, strange, difficult -- not your typical novels to pick up and enjoy an escape. They all can be quite dark, searching, haunting, etc. Of all of her books, this was my favorite, second to Handmaid's Tale.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 07, 2007

Geetanjali rated it:

I enjoyed this one for it's outrageous take-off on the gothic form, and its moments of dark humour!

My review http://literarymosaic.blogspot.com/2006/...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Kate rated it:

Charming, hilarious fun (though this might be one of the more pointedly anti-American ones, which bugs me).

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 23, 2010

Jamie rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

4 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 17, 2008

Rea rated it:

I love M. Atwood, but this book...I still can't believe she wrote it.

In most cases Atwood's themes revolve around women in some form or another. For the first time I felt myself becoming so frustrated with the female protagonist. I wanted to slap her and tell her to (ironically) grow some balls and stop feeling sorry for herself; there are people who have worst problems! She was weak and doubtful for superficial reasons and I couldn't believe Atwood would resort to using weight a maj More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 12, 2010

Melissa rated it:

I loved this book. Joan Foster creates seperate identities in order to cope; she destroys those identities in order to exist. The Lady of Shallot, spiritualism, socialism, and gothic romance novels... self-realization made quirky and fun.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 18, 2011

Tania rated it:

I love Margaret Atwood. She's one of my favorite authors. This book didn't quite live up to my expectations of her. I thought the main character, Joan, was great. Very well developed. I related to her and I cared what happened to her. As usual, the best parts of this book were the sections that dealt with Joan's complicated family relationships, her romantic life, and her childhood. Nobody can understand the complexities of female friendship better than Atwood. Atwood uses flashbacks to tell the More...

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Apr 02, 2011

Rosie rated it:

Lady Oracle. The quote on the cover of my copy, taken from a review in Time magazine, reads 'A mistress of controlled hysteria'. I am assuming here that they are referring to Atwood and not the novel's protagonist, who is a mistress (indeed numerous men's mistress) and yet a mistress of nothing, and that's not even mentioning how stratospherically out of control her hysteria is. It is true that, as many reviews proclaim, protagonist Joan Foster (just one of her many names) is hard to like, but t More...

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May 19, 2010

Surreysmum rated it:

[These notes were made in 1982:]. Although still contemptuous of Canadian literature in general (old habits die hard), I find I begin to appreciate certain particular authors, and Margaret Atwood is definitely one of them. She has the uncanny knack of making each of her novels seem autobiographical, which I suppose is merely another way of paying tribute to the convincing verisimilitude of her detail, exterior and interior. A good part of this particular novel hit home very hard, for it detail More...

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Oct 22, 2007

Rachel rated it:

A good book, but not a great book. A fascinating tale of a woman who writes "lurid Gothics" in her spare time, becomes a fraud of a poet overnight and fakes her own death to escape her multiple, bizarre affairs (including one with a man named, I kid you not, the Royal Porcupine).

Somehow, Atwood manages to make this sound a lot less zany than it comes off. The ending has an unresolved quality that is very symptomatic (I feel) of Atwood's earlier novels. A brilliant read, fl

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Feb 10, 2012

Judith rated it:

I really enjoyed reading this book. Atwood is a fantastic and intelligent writer, smooth and easy to read with great metaphors and images, that never intrude in a way that suggests the author is showing off, but that resonate and ring true to the plot and characters. And yet - the end didn't quite seem to work for me. It felt as if she didn't quite know how to finish things off, unless I am missing a fundamental point somewhere. The story is engaging - fat child, using her obesity as a weapon More...

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May 11, 2009

Rebecca rated it:

This book starts off really promising and has a lot of potential to be a really interesting story about a girl's relationship with her mother and her problems with her body image and self-esteem. The middle and end portions of the book, though, were complete flops for me. The story took weird, rambling turns, and none of the characters except for the protagonist, Joan, and her mother were at all believable -- most of them were too dull for real life, or too weird. The tone of the story also s More...

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Sep 10, 2011

Jennifer rated it:

It was a quicker read than I thought. I thought a lot of Joan's thoughts and fears were relatable and her flashbacks, especially later on in the book, kept me engaged. She's a pretty smart, although somewhat paranoid character, considering how she managed to escape many of her problems through believable yet intricate lies. I'm disappointed though in the ending of the book. I don't know what I expected but it felt it was going to be more shocking than what you get. Despite being entertained by h More...

3 comments like

Nov 20, 2009

Lauren rated it:

Having only previously read The Handmaid's Tale (and having been really impressed by that experience), I had high expectations. This book only partly delivered. It took me quite a few chapters to find the narrator empathetic - or even interesting beyond her surface quirks. In fact, her surface quirks and eccentricities disoriented me for quite a while. What kept me reading was my faith that Margaret Atwood had to know what she was doing, right?
I was surprised at how much I enjoyed th More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 24, 2007

Gwendolyn rated it:

This was the first Margaret Atwood book I've read, and I really enjoyed her writing style. Not much action in the plot, but Atwood's writing kept me interested. Great characterization, too. Funny, touching, did I mention funny?
I'll definitely read more of her books.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Jessica rated it:

I didn't enjoy "Lady Oracle" as much as I had enjoyed other Atwood novels that I've read. Atwood is one of my favorite writers so I still found this a worthwile read. The book is populated by smart, funny, and deep characters. The ending was a bit of a disappointment.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 19, 2010

Nancy rated it:

This is my second Margaret Atwood experience, the first was The Blind Assassin and I am concluding that her books just aren't for me. They both disturbed me or creeped me out.

The story definitely had pathos: a seriously overweight young woman struggles through childhood and adolescence and, although trim and alluring by adulthood, never overcomes her identity issues. Atwood very skillfully makes the reader aware of the pain and discomfort the character feels in almost every situation More...

1 comment like

Sep 07, 2010

Faith rated it:

I liked this book. The writing is breezy and fun from the first sentence: "I planned my death carefully, unlike my life, which meandered along from one thing to another, despite my feeble attempts to control it." We then get to "meander" with Joan through her early life as an obese child, her pathetic search for love in all the wrong places once she slims down; and her many secret lives as Gothic novel writer, adulteress, and reluctant revolutionary. In between these reminisc More...

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Dec 16, 2009

Claire rated it:

Ok, so this one isn't Atwood's best...but if you ever took a ballet class when you were young, or know what it's like not being the skinniest girl in class then there's one scene that makes this a must read...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 19, 2010

Philippa rated it:

I love Atwood's writing so I knew I would enjoy it, but I found it frustrating in equal measure. Perhaps I identified too closely with the heroine in her weight struggles - this idea that there is only a thin or a fat body, nothing in between. I wanted to shake Joan when she went off on one of her self loathing tangents, and then realised with horror that maybe I'm like that sometimes....is that the mark of a good author, I wonder, that they tap into dark parts of ourselves that we won't admit More...

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Jul 26, 2009

Jesse rated it:

I continue to love Margaret Atwood. This book was the same but different than most of the things I've read of hers. And, I have no problem with this.

Atwood creates these characters that I find incredibly easy to relate with. People who settle, follow, feelt guilt and regret, change, and lots of those things that make us feel a bit unsettled.

I think one of the interesting differences in this book was the relationship between the main character and parents. I feel this More...

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May 03, 2009

Liz rated it:

Not my favorite book but interesting enough to suck me in. A young woman who having grown up overweight and constantly reminded of the problem by her mother, receives an inheritance from her favorite aunt which comes with strings attached- lose the weight. To escape he rather dysfunctional home life she does lose the weight and moves away from home. Ends up writing gothic romances to support herself and along the way meets and becomes involved with a few strange male characters. In order to More...

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