Cat's Eye (Bloomsbury Modern Library) (New Portway Large Print Books)

by Margaret Atwood

A breathtaking novel of a woman grappling with the tangled knot of her life—from the bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments

Disturbing, humorous, and compassionate, Cat’s Eye is the story of Elaine Risley, a controversial painter who returns to Toronto, the city of her youth, for a retrospective of her art. Engulfed by vivid images of the past, she reminisces about a trio of girls who initiated her into the the fierce politics of childhood and its secret world of friendship, longing, and betrayal. Elaine must come to terms with her own identity as a daughter, a lover, an artist, and a woman—but above all she must seek release form her haunting memories.

• ISBN10: 0385491026
• ISBN13: 9780385491020
• Publish Date: 20 January 1998 (first published 31 December 1988)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc
• Imprint: Bantam USA
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 480
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780385491020

Reviews

[clementine]

This is still one of my favourites, five years later - so brutal and unflinching. Margaret Atwood has done a bit of everything, but I think her realistic fiction is perhaps her strongest work.

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Review 01/31/2012:

I don't know what I was expecting with this book, but it certainly wasn't what I ended up reading. I thought I would enjoy it, but I didn't think I would be so immersed in it, so saturated with the vivid descriptions. Reading Cat's Eye is like drowning. That sounds negative, but it's the only way I can think to describe it: it's so immersive, and I felt like I was choking for air the entire time. It is so dark and disturbing.

I don't know how this book would read to somebody else, but for me it was such an odd experience because I know what she's writing about. I know what Elaine went through in her childhood. I felt those emotions so strongly, because I have felt them before in my life. That period was 1/3 of my life ago, and as soon as I started reading Cat's Eye it felt as if those experiences were still new. Even after all these years, it's so raw.

I don't know. I can't get all my emotions in order. I was discussing this book in class the other day, and I almost started crying. I surprised myself with that. I didn't realize how much it was affecting me.

This isn't a book that I would normally give five stars to. It's just not my usual type of book, really. But I can't find one flaw in it, and I know it's going to stick with me, as much as I might like to forget about it. It's going to disturb me for a long time.