Cat's Eye Book Review

 Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood

1988

Psychological Fiction

Margaret Atwood is my favorite author of all time. I was in grade 10 when I first read The Handmaid’s Tale, and was blown away by the writing and that a book could cause me to question the world around me for days. While I have read and been introduced to a lot of other amazing authors since I was a tenth grader, I haven’t read any author that makes me question my worldview quite like Atwood. Despite my love for Margaret Atwood, I have not come close to reading even a quarter of her entire book collection yet.

Cat’s Eye has been sitting on my bookshelf now for well over two years and it wasn’t until recently that I felt like it was the right time to pick it up. Even though the book has essentially been sitting around to collect dust, I think I’m happy that I waited so long to read it, as the themes center on growing up and identity.

The book works as a dual timeline, moving between protagonist Elaine’s life as a middle aged artist and her untraditional childhood. I liked how the book explored Toronto and northern Ontario through the perspective of younger and older Elaine. The writing and creation of the plot is so on point that even though the time period changes at times between paragraphs, I was never confused as a reader. Additionally, I loved how quickly time seems to move in the novel. I remember reading a scene where Elaine had her first child and thinking “I swear Elaine was only a child a couple minutes ago!” Atwood really captured how fast time passes and identity changes as we move and meet new people. 

The scope of the novel is spectacular, and I loved Elaine’s voice through the first person. She was such an interesting character ‘to grow up with’ in the sense we learn about her from her childhood to her adulthood. Her life is so interesting, and I love reading about characters that fascinate me. 

This review really could be my longest yet, but I’d much rather you read the novel than my analysis of it.

Rating: 5/5 I loved every moment I spent reading this novel. Atwood is such an amazing author whose work continues to amaze me no matter how many of her books I’ve already read.

A Note on my Edition

My copy of Cat’s Eye is a first edition from the late eighties, and visually my favorite cover and version that I’ve seen. If you like thrifting for books, I’d definitely keep an eye open because I think Atwood’s first editions always look better than preceding editions. 

My other reason for pointing this out is because of the overall quality of the book. There’s nothing better than a beautiful book, but there’s something about the quality of the older books I’ve been reading that hits differently. For example, the pages of Cat’s Eye were so thick compared to newer books, I honestly thought that I was flipping two pages instead of one. This book was preowned at least once, and I threw this in my beach bag, but there's very little damage to any part of the book.