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    The Robber Bride
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    The Robber Bride
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    The Robber Bride
    Audiobook20 hours

    The Robber Bride

    Written by Margaret Atwood

    Narrated by Bernadette Dunne

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    From the extraordinary imagination of the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale, comes one of her most intricate and subversive novels. Set in contemporary Toronto, The Robber Bride revolves around the lives of three fascinating women. Classmates from university, Roz, Charis, and Tony all shared the seductive and destructive experience of a past friendship with the flashy, sensuous, smart, irresistible Zenia. As the novel opens, they are twenty years past their college days and have met at Zenia's funeral, but at lunch, after the funeral, they spot Zenia-not dead at all and up to no good.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateAug 2, 2011
    ISBN9780307940612
    Unavailable
    The Robber Bride
    Author

    Margaret Atwood

    Margaret Atwood, whose work has been published in more than forty-five countries, is the author of over fifty books, including fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. In addition to The Handmaid’s Tale, now an award-winning television series, her works include Cat’s Eye, short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; The MaddAddam Trilogy; The Heart Goes Last; Hag-Seed; The Testaments, which won the Booker Prize and was long-listed for the Giller Prize; and the poetry collection Dearly. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka International Literary Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Innovator’s Award. In 2019 she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in Great Britain for her services to literature. She lives in Toronto.

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    Reviews for The Robber Bride

    4/5

    1,679 ratings65 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I'm not sure what to add to the many excellent reviews here of The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood, but this was my favorite of hers that I've read so far. Not only is this a character study of the women involved, but the plot kept moving along. This story will stay with me for a long time -- how the manipulative Zenia wreaks havoc in the lives and relationships of three other women (they knew each other initially in college). Zenia opens up their psychological wounds -- some readers may have triggers -- and adds more to the pain. What a villain!
    • 5/5
      The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood is going to be a book that I long remember. I ran the gamut of emotions while reading it. At times I was frustrated and angry, other times I was laughing, some parts of the book touched me deeply while others cause me to rant and rave. The story is how three women are exploited and damaged by a fourth. She uses them, steals their men, takes their money, then gets bored and moves on. Occasionally she also uses blackmail to get what she wants.I actually didn’t relate to any of the women, they mostly angered me with how they tended to put their men on a pedestal and the men totally peeved me with their wishy-washy ways and how they allowed their women to clean up their messes. Unfortunately these women were no match for this master predator as all three of them came from damaged backgrounds. She was an expert at digging out her victims weak spots and manipulating it to her advantage. And yet, the author gave a sense of playfulness to the story with her wit and insight into male/female relationships.The Robber Bride has a dark fairy tale quality, with this truly evil she-creature picking apart each woman’s life, but in actuality, the men were such spineless philanderers and shameless liars that these women would be better off without them. Perhaps Atwood, with tongue-in-cheek, was showing that this villainous woman was doing them a favour.
    • 4/5
      Don't want to write too much here in advance of our book club discussion next week, but I'm pretty impressed by what Margaret Atwood did with the story. Also, she is a genius with words. Because of that, I think she can get away with doing things in fiction that would, in the hands of another author, ring hideously false or contrived. This is a bizarre story in many ways, almost verging on magical realism, but I think she makes it work.

      Also, I got chills from this passage:

      “Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it's all a male fantasy: that you're strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.”

      I am a woman with a man inside watching a woman. /shiver

    • 5/5
      One of my favourite Atwoods, always good to re-read. I love the setting on the Toronto island, and biting sarcasm, anger and revenge, some great chuckles along the way.
    • 4/5
      Not quite sure how to go about reviewing this book. I enjoyed the development of the characters and their interactions. The plot was a little like a horror movie for me where you are shouting at the character 'don't go through that door'.
    • 3/5
      kind of fun
    • 3/5
      The beautiful, enigmatic, villainous Zenia has ruined three women's lives. They meet at her funeral, and then run into her at a coffee shop. From there, we get their stories of how Zenia has affected them, which leads to the resolution in the final third of the book. I enjoyed this book. There were a few parts where I thought that one of the characters became a bit cartoonish, and there were parts where I wanted Zenia to have a few more redeemable qualities to add depth to the novel. Overall, thought I thought that it was well done, and I enjoyed reading it.
    • 5/5
      wonderful book
    • 5/5
      Three women, their lives and their relationships to men and to each other, plus a fourth, the menacing Zenia who plays a key role in their adult lives. There are several narratives going on. First three stories about who these women are starting from their childhood and early adulthood. Then the three stories of their relationships with their partners and how Zenia moves in on them. Finally the combined story of their reactions when Zenia suddenly reappears in their lives after having been declared dead. At the end, I thought that despite the pain she caused at the time, the malevolent Zenia actually ended up helping all of them to grow & mature. While the characters of each of the three women are painstakingly developed through their childhood experiences, who Zenia was and where she came from remains a mystery.Many times insightful and often witty, it was a pleasure and a fascinating read, though not an easy one.
    • 3/5
      A history professor, real estate developer and hippie are taken in by a woman (pretending?) to be their friend, who wreaks havoc on their lives.This isn't my favorite Atwood — her male characters are always awful, but these are sneakily awful, turning out to be awful after you've been told they were great. There's also a message here about the difference between friendship and manipulation. Sure, there's the intent of the participants, but there's also something about the nature of the communication: Zenia draws out secret hidden wounds from the past like an evil analyst, while the friends react to each other as they are now. There's something voyeuristic and weird about reading the ghastly stuff that has happened to the characters in the past, making you feel more like Zenia, the intruder. The scenes with the three friends together have a different tone, and they include charming and practical details of human interaction, like Roz trying to subtly pay for Charis's stuff.
    • 3/5
      “Just because there's a silence it doesn't mean that nothing is going on.”Beautiful, smart, greedy and ruthless Zenia enters the lives of three other women exploiting them, stealing their men before getting bored and then moving on to the next leaving each woman emotionally devastated. Out of the blue they hear that she has apparently died. They are elated at their rival's demise and even attend her funeral just to make sure. Despite their precautions five years on they are shocked when their erstwhile rival walks in to the restaurant where they are sharing a meal, once again disturbing their seemingly sedate lives.In many respects this is a modern fairy tale where the evil witch causes mayhem and thus must face a final reckoning. She seems to have a magical power over men and even appears to get ever more attractive as she grows older. However, it is also the story of an unlikely friendship between three very different grown-up women whose only common connection is their dislike of Zenia. This book suggests that the pain and heartache that women inflict upon one another is far worse than whatever men can cause them.Each of the three victims have their back stories told in roughly equal hundred-page sections making each feel like an interlocking novella. All three have emerged from unhappy families and childhoods where in particular they had a very fractious relationships with their own mothers. Unscrupulous Zenia learns their secrets by pretending to be their friend and then sets out to use them to her own malevolent ends. She uses the others trust as the weapon against them. There is no line she will not cross, she is just pure evil. In contrast the men in the novel are largely peripheral. Each are selfish but their one real power is to cause anguish to the women who love them. This they do by falling for Zenia's charms before they themselves are discarded by her.The story is one of domestic and emotional violence rather than one with any great catastrophes. It is beautifully written and each character is wonderfully created. If I have one complaint it is that you never get to know Zenia's own back story. What caused her to be the way she is? Is it nurture or nature? She casts a dark shadow over the characters' lives but is also as nebulous as one too. She is, however, a credible monster if a somewhat opaque one. An enjoyable read but perhaps not a great one IMHO.
    • 4/5
      Not quite sure how to go about reviewing this book. I enjoyed the development of the characters and their interactions. The plot was a little like a horror movie for me where you are shouting at the character 'don't go through that door'.
    • 4/5
      Four women, who first met at university in the sixties, each have a run-in with a fifth woman, Zenia. But that’s all behind them, since Zenia apparently died in a terrorist bomb, and her depradations actually brought them together as friends, even though they sort of knew each other back in university… And then a woman walks into the coffee shop where the four have met for their weekly lunch, and they all recognise her: Zenia. The novel then takes each of the four women in turn, and tells their stories and how Zenia entered their lives and the damage she caused. There are, it sometimes seems to me, two Margaret Atwoods. There are the novels written by one Atwood, where the ideas are really good but the prose never really shines; and there’s the other Atwood, whose prose is beautifully put together and a joy to read. I’d say Oryx and Crake was by the first Atwood, and Alias Grace by the second. The Robber Bride is also by the second. I’ve not enjoyed, and been so impressed on a sentence-by-sentence level, by an Atwood novel since reading, well, Alias Grace. This is easily her second-best work. I have by no means read her entire oeuvre, although I do plan to work by way through it. But of those I’ve read so far, I’d put The Robber Bride second after Alias Grace (and yes, above The Handmaid’s Tale).
    • 2/5
      I pulled the plug on this one, invoking the "100 page rule". I read about 150 pages and could care less about the characters, their neuroses, relationships...I found that I was more sympathetic for the antagonigt, Zenia. It was so verbose and overdone, taking itself VERY seriously. i have to say YUK.
    • 4/5
      oted as inspired by"The Robber Bridegroom" (Brothers Grimm)Zenia is the main character and antagonist to three friends, Tony, Charis, and Roz.All are college acquaintances.Zenia is described as a "lying, charismatic femme fatale who at one time or other stole the men in their lives."She is the cord that binds these three dissimilar women.Atwood has each woman discusses Zenia's deceptions and the damage that followed.As the novel opens, the friends believe Zenia five years dead.They discover otherwise and the story begins.The story was narrated by Blythe Danner.I appreciated her performance, especially the character Zenia.Zenia exposed individual weaknesses in the women and in facing each, their destruction spiraled.I was fascinated that M Atwood could conceive and develop the villainess Zenia with such precision.....very complex characters in a complex story....The conclusion left me shaking my head.Is something like this really possible?Who knows....3.5 ★
    • 3/5
      Atwood is probably my favorite author, and while I feel this novel was good (I mean, it was Atwood), the story line didn't grasp me as much as some of her others that I absolutely love. Still present is the great and distinct style that is Atwood.

      This is not to say that the plot is bad, it isn't. It's just not as "OH MY GOD THIS IS LIFE ALTERING" that some of her other books have meant to me.

      This novel follows three women, who are very different, and who probably would not be friends, were it not for their mutual tormentor: Zenia. No one really knows Zenia, or the truth about Zenia, because she lies, and lie very well. She also enjoys stealing boyfriends/husbands.

      This is the story of these three women, Tony, Charis and Roz, and their experiences with Zenia. They all breathe a deep sigh of relief when she turns up dead....until about six years later she reappears, apparently faking her own death. Now the three are faced with what is, by all means, their worst enemy--and they don't know what it is she wants now. Tony's husband (again?), Roz's son? One thing they all want: answers about Zenia.
    • 5/5
      This? This is a "thumping good read," and what a deliciously, ironic ending. Brava, Ms. Atwood, Brava.Zenia preys on people, for fun and, mostly, for profit. She is an evil scheming sociopath with no scruples, morals or ethics.Tony, Charis, and Roz knew each other slightly from college, but become fast friends when they bump into each other at Zenia's funeral.The Robber Bride is the story of these three women from childhood. It's the story of how Zenia wreaked havoc on their lives, and how they carried on.And it's deeper than that. It's a look at how decisions made by others shape our lives without our knowledge, and how some people are just no good.Be warned: there are possible triggers in one particular chapter.
    • 3/5
      This was an intricately woven book, about 3 women who otherwise wouldn't have even been friends, but ended up becoming the closest of friends through common circumstance. The common circumstance being a woman by the name of Zenia, who blazed through their lives, stealing what was nearest & dearest to them, their husbands/lovers, then leaving them helping each other pick up the pieces. Zenia is a liar, telling Tony, Roz, & Charis(formerly Karen), each different stories of her childhood, and her circumstances. They think they are safe when news comes in of Zenia's death in Beirut, on assignment for the magazine she works for, & her cremains are sent back, & are buried. 5 years later, the 3 are stunned to run into her again in the same city, & like a spider, Zenia begins to weave her web of deceit again. What follows makes the book next to impossible to put down.
    • 1/5
      This is definitely not my favorite Atwood--the characters all seemed like stereotypes to me, and for the most part not very likeable ones. The men seemed to have zero free will or self control.
    • 4/5
      I can't remember what class I read this for. Loved the book, though. I need to read more Atwood.
    • 3/5
      Rating: 3 of 5I never really connected with any of the women in The Robber Bride, which made this one a difficult read. The characterization was spot on; I just didn't like anyone. There's a (sometimes subtle) difference between a weak, flawed character and a victim. And I don't have a strong stomach for victim-y women.My favorite part of the book was how Atwood switched POVs easily with zero confusion for the reader. Her characters were so distinct, such real people, they made the different POVs and flashbacks just flow right along with the present day narratives. Brilliant!
    • 3/5
      One of my favorite epithets--The Big Roz--comes from this book. So even though I didn't like it so much, I have to add an extra star.
    • 4/5
      The first Margaret Atwood book I ever read. I loved it! (The book is much better than the movie, too.)
    • 5/5
      I found this fascinating and extremely moving, but was not compelled to re-read it immediately, as I was with The Blind Assassin. That's a rather high standard to hold it up to, however, and I certainly believe this book is worth more than 4 stars. Margaret Atwood's intense understanding and affection for her characters, even, in the end, the nastiest of them, is inspiring. I wish I could feel such tolerance for the foibles of others!
    • 4/5
      Three very different women become friends after each falling victim to a fourth woman.The Robber Bride is told from the points of view of three  women: Tony, a diminutive professor of military history who is obsessed with battles; Charis, a flower-child holdover; and Roz, a wealthy businesswoman. Each of them has tangled with Zenia and lost; she deceived them, stole their men, stole their money, and moved on to her next victim.Roz is the last to tell her story, and until her voice took up the narrative, I wasn't connecting with this book very well. I didn't particularly identify with Roz, but I did like her. She has an outgoing, outsized personality and seems much less withdrawn from life than her two friends. Zenia herself is a cipher, and she never gets to tell her own story. We know nothing concrete about her because everything she says is a lie. I can't figure out what motivates her to do the things she does. She is a black hole, and Charis speculates as to whether she may even be soulless. What's the attraction? I can't see it. Perhaps it's just that she is able to be every person's fantasy. She is the woman that the men fantasize about being with and the women fantasize about being. Perhaps she isn't even real at all.This was a slippery book, and I had a hard time getting my arms around it. Intellectually, I admired it: the allusions to fairy tales, the interwoven points of view, the subjectiveness of reality. It's a feminist novel that pits women against women, and that's interesting. Emotionally, I didn't really connect with it, though. I liked reading The Robber Bride, but I couldn't find myself in it.Read because I like the author (2014).
    • 4/5
      My third attempt at reading, enjoying and finishing a Margaret Atwood novel. It’s third time lucky which has demonstrated that persistence surely pays off. I struggled with Alias Grace and got about a third of the way through before giving up. I think this was more to do with not being in the right mood than the book itself. I read all of The Handmaid’s Tale but just couldn’t connect with any of the characters and the style in which the book was written in wasn’t for me. It all made me feel rather inadequate. It reminded me of the times when I would be at a party or club standing in a corner on my own, feeling somewhat confused and left out of things. Everyone seemed to be having a good time except me. Everyone seemed to love The Handmaid’s Tale, except me….So, onto The Robber Bride. It’s a pretty straightforward story and written in a style I can read without having to repeat the sentence several times over before it makes sense (sadly, and possibly due to age and stress, the ability to understand and retain information is becoming problematic for me). The Robber Bride is set in the 1990′s and tells the tale of three forty-something year old friends whose lives have become infected by the legendary, sociopathic, femme fetal called Zenia whom they have known since college. Their stories are told in turn. How did they became involved with and be taken in by such a woman? How has she been allowed to impact so negatively upon their lives? Atwood also gives us a glimpse into each woman’s childhood which enables us to see how they may have been taken in by Zenia and how she was able to find their individual weakness and go for the ‘kill’.We really don’t get to know much about Zenia although she is a constant threat running throughout the book. She is larger than life with a character something akin to a predatory hawk sizing up and seizing her prey. Zenia holds an almost mythical status, a legend who breezes in and out of their lives taking what she can whilst managing to seduce them into believing whatever she says. There are times where you do wonder whether such a person has existed in the lives of these women or whether she is in fact one and all of them. She ‘physically’ appears throughout the book only a small number of times yet her character manages to seep out of all 466 pages of the book.The tale of the Robber Bride is said to be the female version of The Robber Bridegroom, a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. The Robber Bridegroom is a rather gruesome tale of a chap who lures young women with the promise of love, marriage and wealth but where the final result is that he and his fellow crew fill the ‘brides to be’ full of booze and eat them (or something along those lines).The Robber Bride is definitely more subtle than that. However, you are left in no doubt that Zenia must be some kind of sociopath. She does the things she does for no other reason other than because she can. She takes advantage of her prey and is quick to recognise and seize upon each vulnerability. She takes no prisoners. I’m very glad I have never knowingly known a Zenia…..I enjoyed reading the Robber Bride. I thought the characters were very well written, sympathetic and with very well thought out back stories. The writing style flowed along nicely and, whilst I did get a little distracted on a couple of occasions (becoming impatient and wanting the book to hurry up and finish), I did overall enjoy the story and the characters. I’m also quite relieved to say I have read and liked an Atwood book! Success!! I shall no longer be found in the kitchen at parties looking sad, dazed and confused and alone.
    • 5/5
      Reading Robber Bride I sometimes felt that I was eavesdropping on an intimate woman-to-woman talk. Yet the book is just as powerful and relevant for men. Dated in some details, but by no means in essentials, Robber Bride conveyed a real sense of dread at times.Three midlife women have been bonded, for many years, through the common woe dealt to them by Zenia, a stunning beauty who 'stole' and then morally destroyed each of their male partners, and brought material damage to the women themselves. Years after attending her funeral they still feared her memory. Now they now discover that Zenia not only hasn't died, but has recently made contact with the current men in their lives.Roz is an earthy, practical-minded boss, Tony a cold-fish academic, Charis an intuitive, spiritualist hippie. Half-paralysed by anxiety at Zenia's return, they try to understand what is happening - to those around them, and inside their own heads - and take defensive action. Along the way we learn at length about the psychological damage they each received in their childhoods, and how it has shaped their later experience of Zenia. In fact their backgrounds take up a large part of the text. The sociopathic aspect of Zenia is pretty clear – someone unencumbered by conscience or empathy, x-raying people to view the skeleton of their deepest drives, but entirely missing the beauty and soft appeal of their rounded personalities. She feeds only off challenge and victory and new kicks: for her a sustained relationship equals boredom.She is also of course a femme-fatale: in Zenia, the woman who defines herself in terms of the male gaze has sharpened herself into a deadly weapon. You start with a body that is socially defined as lovely; work on it; bring to bear all the tricks of charm; add insight, cunning, self-discipline, composure under pressure. Now supply the rationale, the excuse he needs to get past his conscience (you are vulnerable and need his help, for example), and you have him. Sex opens a mine-shaft to the inner psyche, which she knows how to explore. As sex-goddess Zenia becomes 90% of reality to her men. But this is all seen from a distance, from the perceptions of the three women and the apocryphal comments of Z herself.Sex is not her only hook, and in the case of her female victims it is always some other longing - Zenia finds out whatever each woman yearns for, and finds a way to embody it. This we get in some detail (we see far more of various imagined Zenias than of the woman herself). However she gets hold of you, once she has you you are gone. After that, any public hint that she is nasty and exploitative feels threatening to you, because it might displease her and induce her to withdraw from you. Her approval is everything. But the judgments she delivers to men and to women - once she has sucked them dry - are of the greatest brutality, resonating with the worst messages they have internalised from the past. She now walks the corridors of their dreams. Even once they understand what she is, and hate her, they can't help wanting to identify with, celebrate, even cherish her, thanks to her intense vitality and the passions she has summoned up in them.The book is similar to Balzac's Cousin Bette and Thackery's Vanity Fair in having an evil female agent who works against a backdrop of male depravity and moral weakness; there are strong hints that this is the real problem to be addressed. The men are never seen from the inside; two of them remain almost entirely blank to us, though they all seem to end up with some kind of self-loathing. One of them, in the final break-up scene with his partner, gives a fine example of the malice that emerges when someone abandons their ideals.A few reviewers have complained that the book demonises the 'other woman' and non-monogamous women generally. It could be used that way, though it is unlikely to be the author's intention, given her support for female sexual expression in other contexts.The book warns that high-minded thoughts and finer feelings draw their sap from deep, hidden roots: poison them, and the whole tree sickens.It is very funny in parts. And there are the references to fairy tales and the supernatural - it really needs a more extended review.
    • 5/5
      Maybe that's what West found so irresistible about Zenia, Tony used to think: that she was raw, that she was raw sex, whereas Tony herself was only the cooked variety. Parboiled to get the dangerous wildness out, the strong fresh-blood flavors. Zenia was gin at midnight, Tony was eggs for breakfast, and in eggcups at that. It's not the category Tony would have preferred.Tony, Charis and Roz have all fallen prey to Zenia, or rather their husbands and boyfriends have been stolen away along with other things they held dear, like trust and security and chickens. Zenia, a talented grifter, knows how to get each woman to trust her, until she's taken what she wants and disappears. First is the diminutive, studious Tony, an orphan studying the history of war and living in a residence hall where she does not mix comfortably with the boisterous girls enjoying college life. Then she meets West, a music student with whom she forms a close friendship only to discover that he's living with the glamourous Zenia. Charis has learned how to disappear into herself, a necessary skill to surviving her childhood, first with a mother with a mental illness and then with relatives who are willing to do their duty by her. She finds security for herself though, by creating a home in a drafty little house on an island a short ferry ride from Toronto. With the addition of Billy, an American avoiding the Vietnam War and a flock of chickens, she forges a small family for herself and willingly sets out to shelter and heal Zenia, who tells her she's dying of cancer. And then there's Roz, big-boned and loud, who has a family she loves and a burgeoning business empire, for whom Zenia poses as a talented war correspondent looking to start a career in a gentler place.Often in a book with a shifting point of view, I find myself preferring certain characters and wishing they had more time and others less, or I find it hard to fully involve myself in the story, because the emotional emphasis keeps shifting. Margaret Atwood's so good at what she does, however, that I found myself equally invested in each of these three very different women. While Zenia, a woman willing to betray other women to get what she wants, is the center of the book, the real story is about the friendship between Tony, Roz and Charis, who would not have become close had they not all been deceived by Zenia. Each is vulnerable because they are open to friendship and it is ultimately that openness that saves and heals them.
    • 4/5
      I have been thrilled to find that each of my reading experiences with Atwood’s books has been completely unique and this one is no exception. Reading each of her novels has been fulfilling in a different way. The Handmaid’s Tale is a big picture look at a possible dystopian future and it makes you think about the role women currently play in society and how that role has changed throughout history. The Blind Assassin is an intricately built plot combining a sci-fi story and a mystery that comes full circle in an incredibly rewarding way. The Penelopiad takes a well-known Greek saga and tells it from a new perspective. Oryx and Crake is a post-apocalyptic break down of society. Whatever people say about Atwood, they can never call her boring. For me, The Robber Bride holds perfectly true to my past experiences with Atwood. I’ve learned to expect the unexpected. I never know where her books are going to take me and this one surprised me with its simplicity. On the surface it has the most basic of plots: the thin line between jealousy and friendship in the relationships between women. The premise: a beautiful woman named Zenia has destroyed the lives of three women and now she’s returned to wreak havoc again.The plot revolving around Zenia is technically the thread that holds the story together, but to me it was the least interesting part of the book. Atwood does an excellent job making us care for those characters before we become frustrated with them, but I still wasn’t a big fan of the manipulative evil woman vs. the pathetic and gullible woman premise. The reason I enjoyed this one was not because of the actual plot. I thought the scenes with Zenia were the weakest aspect of the story. Instead, I loved the character development of the three main women; Charis, Tony and Roz. They are so different, yet men seem to be their one unifying weakness. Atwood presents the characters to us and just when we think we know them, she pulls back layer after layer in their history and we being to understand just how little we knew from our first impressions. None of them are simple or can be boiled down to a generic stereotype. They are all unique and complex and it’s a testament to Atwood’s skill as a writer that she can make us care so deeply about characters, while at the same time being frustrated with their choices. BOTTOM LINE: Atwood is just brilliant. This isn’t my favorite of her books (it’s The Handmaid’s Tale if you’re curious), but it’s still a solid one and the characters will stay with me for a long time.  
    • 4/5
      I found it slow going in the first couple of chapters, but before long I was enthralled by this tale of three very different women who share one thing in common — all three have had their lives and loves upheaved by Zenia. The story begins by the three women sharing mutual relief when they learn of Zenia's death, only to have her rise from the dead and appear before them, ready for battle. Atwood lovingly describes each of the three women, dipping back into their pasts and forward into their present. Each is wounded in some way, and though their bonding over Zenia is the impetus for their friendship, the seed that is planted grows into deep companionship and trust. Zenia, however, remains ever on the outside, a wanderer, a mystery. She is beautiful, sexy, and in her associations with each of the other women, she becomes something slightly different, a reflection of what they need, what they want her to be. Zenia is shifting, changeable as wind, and someone who can never quite be nailed down. Questions about her are never really answered, and that's how it should be. No force of nature so fierce should ever by fully defined.