The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Robber Bride
Book Review: A book that can't be put down
Summary: 4 Stars
I've just finished reading "Blind Assasin" by Atwood when my husband gave me this book as an early Christmas present. I am so grateful to have this book ~~ I feel as if I know Tony, Charis and Roz as well as I know my best friends. Their shared jealousy and anger with Zenia is refreshingly honest. They remind me of three ladies sharing their stories with each other in mutual aggravation with the central character who flits in and out of their lives. Once you pick up this book, you won't be able to put it down. I know, I tried and couldn't.Book Review: A common loathing
Summary: 4 Stars
The story of "The Robber Bride" is told through the eyes of three women -- not really friends, in some senses of the word, but united by a long-time bond and a common loathing. The eponymous star of the book, Zenia, doesn't actually appear much in the story except through flashbacks; in fact, when the book begins, she is five years dead. Or so Tony, Charis and Roz believe.
The three women met in college, but their lives have since gone in very different directions. Tony, a professor of history -- or, more specifically, war -- is married, though childless, and her husband is somewhat fragile of spirit. Tony is solid, logical and often dispassionate. Charis is earthier, wrapped in new-age philosophies. She is unsure how to deal with her college-age daughter, and she still wonders what happened to her long-vanished husband, a Vietnam draft-dodger from the States. Roz is a typical mother of three (one post-college son and twin high school-aged daughters) and a wealthy businesswoman, president of her own diverse company.
Zenia is the woman who wrecked their lives, one at a time and years apart. With a multiple-choice past and an enigmatic present, Zenia has facades upon facades, schemes upon conceits, and she befriends people with ease before corrupting the best parts of their lives -- perhaps for no other reason than she can.
Margaret Atwood takes you deep inside each woman's skin -- except, of course, Zenia, who must remain a mystery -- peeling away layers of their lives and examining in white-knuckled detail the events, experiences and tragedies that shaped them. Each woman's narrative seems sufficient foundation for a book even without Zenia's intrusion; combined, "The Robber Bride" is a tapestry of carefully woven strands, seen individually and successively through each woman's perspective. The flow of flashbacks within flashbacks is effectively rendered, never confusing.
It is interesting to conjecture the different lives these women might lead if Zenia had not targeted their vulnerable places. Perhaps better, perhaps worse -- but far less interesting. "The Robber Bride" is a triumphant look at the core of three women and the multifaceted surface of the one who defined them.
Book Review: A complete waste of time
Summary: 1 Stars
The story of Zenia, a character with no redeeming qualities and her impact on three women. Only you never find out anything about Zenia. And Roz, Tony and Charis are not people I cared very much about. I think there characters were pretty well defined, but I kept wondering about the men in their lives and what these women saw in them, and what Zenia wanted with them. When I got to the end all I thought was is that it? I felt like I had wasted a week of my life.Book Review: A delicious, quick read
Summary: 4 Stars
The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood is a page-turner. It's the story of three very different 50-something women, Roz, Tony, and Charis, who have two things in common: they went to school with one another, and they were both horribly mistreated by a woman named Zenia. Zenia is a modern-day Helen of Troy, a woman whose face, breast implants, and devious, callous machinations result in a wave of destruction and man-eating.Much to the women's relief, Zenia ends up dead and buried. They finally feel safe until one day, while they're at lunch, Zenia appears.
The novel traces each woman's explosive history with Zenia, braiding their lives together. They're the three witches of Macbeth, but they don't wait for thunder, lightning, and rain to get together. Instead, they hang out at a trendy restaurant called Toxique. Each woman has a very different personality and past, and each woman has at least one background story on Zenia. None of these stories match up, of course.
This is my one qualm about the book. We never do learn exactly who Zenia is, or why she's motivated to do those awful things she does so very well. She is a delicious villain, a Cruella de Ville of the literati, but what drives her?
At first glance, the story doesn't sound terribly interesting, and relies upon the stereotype of the poor, promiscuous, dupe of a husband, Margaret Atwood adeptly makes it into a wonderful black comedy.
Book Review: A different approach to feminist writing
Summary: 4 Stars
One of Atwood's best works. Shows that though there is a battle of the sexes, women are equally, or maybe even more, susceptible to harm from other women.