Surfacing by Margaret Atwood

Ah, hmm, I really don't know about this one 5/10

From the cover

"Part detective novel, part psychological thriller, Surfacing is the story of a talented woman artist who goes in search of her missing father on a remote island in northern Quebec. Setting out with her lover and another young couple, she soon finds herself captivated by the isolated setting, where a marriage begins to fall apart, violence and death lurk just beneath the surface, and sex becomes a catalyst for conflict and dangerous choices. Surfacing is a work permeated with an aura of suspense, complex with layered meanings, and written in brilliant, diamond-sharp prose. Here is a rich mine of ideas from an extraordinary writer about contemporary life and nature, families and marriage, and about women fragmented...and becoming whole."


I understand what was trying to be done with the book and I really loved a few sentences, very quote worthy but this book really didn't do it for me. I was left with a flat, confused, possibly irritated feeling. This is the only Atwood book I've not really liked.

First off, I don't feel that the blurb from the cover comes even close to describing the story. It was not at all like a detective novel nor thrilling. I don't think I've ever read a more misleading blurb.

*Warning* The next might be a spoiler.

I think it did a good job in showing the decline of her emotional and mental state and it felt like it was really building up to something but then the end came too quickly and nothing, there was not any wholeness in the end or if that was what happened then it was all wrong. I can buy that fast of a decline but the recovery would of not came so quickly.

The next disappointment was with the secondary characters, none of them behaved in an expected or ordinary manner. I kept thinking I'd ditch people too, if this was what I was given to deal with, but also that they would not of acted that way, they would not of left her there.