Review: Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood

Stone Mattress: Nine Tales (2014) by Margaret Atwood

To give you some context, the only other Atwood book I've read so far is The Handmaid's Tale, which was very smart and very creepy. I plan to read her Maddaddam trilogy soon.

As in The Handmaid's Tale, the narrative voice in Stone Mattress is, at times, confident, witty, and cutting.

Which I loved.

Of the nine tales, several stood out because of their unusual subject matter, by which I mean, issues that I personally haven't come across often in works of literary fiction: the problems and complications associated with aging, writers' relationships with zealous fans, and the conflict between a novel/poem and academic interpretations.

From the TBR Shelf #11: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale (1985) by Margaret Atwood

For my first Margaret Atwood novel, I chose The Handmaid's Tale of course! Having heard about it for around a million years, I finally snagged a copy and wound up reading through it at top speed cause I needed to know what was going to happen next.....

That, to me, was one of the things Atwood did so well: creating a sense of dread mixed with excitement, fear mixed with defiance, that keeps the reader on the edge of his/her seat. Will Offred convince herself to submit to the military patriarchy that forces her to choose between procreation or death? Or will she capitalize on the tiny hints of insubordination in the people surrounding her, both those with and without power?