Friday, May 20, 2016

Book Review: The Heart Goes Last


I'm becoming a real fan of Margaret Atwood. What an amazing writer! Like many novels I've been enjoying, The Heart Goes Last describes a dystopian future where limited resources and economic crises cause tremendous social turmoil. One community devises a solution where citizens take turns being prisoners. It reminds me a lot of the Stanford Prison Experiment. The novel probes provocative questions of free will, conformity, infidelity, happiness, psychology, euthanasia, sexual drive, and technology. What would you give up to have three meals a day and a bed to sleep in? Would that make you happy? The book was written in serial form online and has a Charles Dickens-esque nature to it where it can be a little uneven, but for me, I enjoyed the rollercoaster ride. Her writing is exquisitely beautiful; even the title is a hauntingly beautiful phrase. I can't wait to see what she comes up with next.

Image shown under Fair Use, from npr.org.

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