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mia ╰(´︶`)╯♡ is Currently Reading

mia ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡ is currently reading

Things Fall Apart

by Chinua Achebe

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The Cadence of Part-time Poets

by Motswolo

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— Jan 12, 2026 06:03AM

Nov 25, 2025 01:51PM

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Cat's Eye

by Margaret Atwood (Goodreads Author)

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read in November 2022

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mia ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡ said:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

" aug 2023: i originally didn’t like this very much on the first read, or i partially did, but also noticed its flaws more. still, this time round i think i can fully appreciate it. the writing is really well done, tied together really nicely. good com aug 2023: i originally didn’t like this very much on the first read, or i partially did, but also noticed its flaws more. still, this time round i think i can fully appreciate it. the writing is really well done, tied together really nicely. good commentary on time, the passing of it, as well as the almost immobility of it. elaine is very fleshed-out, a very real, breathable character, despite not being super likeable.

nov 2022: i have really poor object permanence. what i mean by this is, i usually rate books by how i feel right after i finish reading them, then after a few days i look back and think i was silly for rating it so highly, when i really didn't enjoy it that much. otherwise, i think why did i rate it that low? or something of that nature. either way, it is not accurate enough. regardless, i sort of hate myself for rating this book so high, even as i am rating it now, because this book gave me so many conflicting feelings throughout about whether or not i enjoyed it, how i should rate it, just a constant bundle of "how do i really feel about this?"

here is how i think i feel about this, but even this i am uncertain of, because i took an unbelievable amount of notes for reviewing this book, probably the most i've ever taken, and a lot of them go against each other, so really i cannot form anything that is absolute and certain.

i've been slowly but surely making my way through atwood novels, and each novel is so wildly different that i can't help bringing my feelings about one of her books to another, which means i have no idea how i really feel. but anyway, i will say i think i like her older work better - the new ones seem to be more for commercial purposes (the testaments) or otherwise straying from her style and too black-and-white (the penelopiad). the one i read right before this was the penelopiad, which i really didn't enjoy, so i was on a certain "atwood is a slut-shaming mild misogynist" streak. i still thought that throughout most of this book, but i also came to a sort of conclusion that it was just accurate to elaine's character. i think atwood is a very specific type of writer, with a very specific way of thinking - i don't always agree with it - but it makes for consistent writing. she's set in her ways, and while most people label her as a feminist writer, i think it's extremely obvious from her writing that she isn't, and she herself even says so constantly. i think she's a good writer and i think it's sort of silly that any book with female characters who are people and have opinions are labelled as feminist, while i also think that people, books, and pretty much everything exists in a gray-zone where nothing is 100% good or bad and a person's goods do not absolve them of their evils, the same way a person's wrongdoings do not erase anything positive they've done.

here's what i originally thought of her writing, which i think rings true in many of her books. her female protagonists often offer insight into what it's like to be a woman (or a certain kind of woman, at the very least), but her female villains are portrayed just as shallowly as men portray all women, as if only certain women deserve to be seen as human, while others are monsters or manipulative scheming monsters. in doing so, she also absolves men of guilt frequently, by depicting them as stupid (which they are) but so stupid they don't know what they're doing to the point where whatever harm they bring you is your own fault. which i disagree with. i think in certain instances atwood seems very victim-blamey: "men were like the weather, they didn't have a mind.. they were like rocks .. if you slipped you'd fall and cut yourself but it was no use blaming the rocks." or, regarding susie (a 19 or 20-year-old girl who is dating her 35 y/o art teacher), seeing her as a seductress: "i feel that mr hrbik needs protecting or rescuing" similarly, when susie wants to get married: "i have no wish to put myself in the same category: irrational, petulant." still, eventually, this sort of resolves (though not in a great way) where she realizes that other women are just as complex as her. she also makes a sort of dig at modern feminism, talking about how elaine feels like she has to play a role of a feminist who never succumbs to men, who enjoys the company of other women, who never shaves her legs, etc. i think this is typical of her time, and of course there are people who think that way, but i don't think that is accurate of most feminists today, but again, this was not written in our day and age.

anyway, to criticize this book as a feminist book where i say "well, it's not adequately feminist, or too misogynistic in this way" seems silly, because it isn't a feminist book. as always, i like atwood's writing style, descriptive and yet engaging and interesting. the non-linear narrative she tends to use and has perfected, works well in this book, which reads more as a memoir of the protagonist as she reflects on her memories and the past. the characterization is incredibly well-done. elaine breathes and demands to be seen as a real person, with shocking liveliness that makes you feel as if you really know and understand her, and is someone you know in real life. elaine is very much a boys' girl , in the sense that she gets along better with men (which i don't relate to), and sort of plays a not-like-other-girls internalized misogyny role ("i think of her as a silly girl who's just fooling around at art school, too dumb to get into university, although i don't make judgements like this about the boys."), though is honest and aware of it. it's obvious this is a product of her upbringing and trauma, and later on, she does seem to grow from this way of thinking. elaine finds girlhood painful, confusing, and incomprehensible, which is true for many girls and probably atwood herself. she finds other girls to be cruel and callous, while seeing herself as separate from them, someone who doesn't understand women, and is constantly playing a role expected of her. this is true - i think i saw another review talking about how atwood has portrayed girlhood as an experience similar to constant surveillance and policing. i don't disagree with this - i only wish elaine had gotten the chance to understand the joys and fun of it as well, the chance to find real friendship and understanding from other women (though i have been reading a lot of austen & little women) elaine is, at the very least, realistic. i have no doubt, as well as my own suspicions, that atwood as well as many other women find girlhood to be like this. i just wish it weren't such a depressing image of being a girl - the book itself makes it seem like being female is nothing but suffering. but at the same time, that is true for some people. at the very end of the novel, i do see growth from this - as elaine is finally wishing and understanding what she has missed out on. also, i see many people think cordelia is the villain, but i don't see it that way. i think it's obvious she's suffered abuse, and is mimicking the adults in her life to gain power over other girls the way adults have done to her. still, i think, if anything, elaine was worse as the novel progressed.

to conclude (or TLDR) i think cat's eye is an intricately woven account of one woman's reflections on her life and past, with startling realism. i don't agree with elaine all the time, but i also recognize that she is a very real character, and holds beliefs that many real women do, and i think the book itself has so many small details that tie together to culminate into acceptance of the past, and who we've been throughout our lives. ...more "

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(page 155 of 512)
— Nov 12, 2025 09:32AM

Dec 22, 2025 06:38PM · see review

mia ╰(´︶`)╯♡’s Quotes

“It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

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“I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

tags: inspirational, women

10689 likes

“The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along, I simply hadn't thought about it.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

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“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

tags: aliteracy, books, classic, humor

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“But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

tags: inspirational, life, thoughtful

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