Good Bones
By Margaret Atwood
Blurb
Queen Gertrude gives Hamlet a piece of her mind.
An ugly sister and a wicked stepmother put in a good word for themselves.
A reincarnated bat explains how Bram Stoker got Dracula hopelessly wrong.
Bones and Murder is a bewitching cocktail of prose and poetry, fiction and fairytales, as well as some of Atwood's own illustrations. It's pure distilled Atwood: deliciously strong and bittersweet.
Our Review
I have been wanting to read Good Bones by Margaret Atwood for a long time but have only just managed to find time to fit it in.
As a general rule I am not a fan of short stories, but Margaret Atwood never fails to entertain me with hers.
This collection of short stories deals with the general roles assigned to women in literature.
Two of my favourites were ‘There was Once’ and ‘Unpopular Gals’ for the witty writing style so characteristic of this author.
“Cooking and eating children, well, can you imagine? What a fantasy, even if I did just eat a few, whose fault was it? Those children were left in the forest by their parents who fully intended them to die. Waste not, want not, has always been my motto.”
I particularly enjoyed this passage about evil stepmothers and their stepdaughters.
“The thing about good daughters is, they’re so good. Obedient and passive, snivelling. I might add. No get-up and go. What would become of them if it weren’t for me? Nothing, that’s what. All they’d ever do is the housework, which seems to feature largely in these stories.
They’d marry some peasant, have seventeen kids, and get ‘A dutiful wife’ engraved on their tombstones”
An excellent collection as usual.
Our Final Rating...
Read & Shared 24 Times.
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