Let’s set the record straight: I love Margaret Atwood. I’ve read a ton of her books, and yeah, they get pretty weird, but for the most part I’m a fan. I love The Handmaid’s Tale in both its book and show forms. You know what I don’t love? “The Heart Goes Last.”
This book has got to be some of the dumbest shit I’ve ever read. Sorry, Margaret.
I picked this book up a few months ago and thought the premise was fascinating. In a not too distant future after an economic crisis, the United States is overrun with crime and both money and jobs are scarce. Charmaine and her husband Stan are living in their car doing their best to get by and stay alive. They hear about the Positron Project, a community made up of the town of Consilience and the Positron prison. Six months out of the year, residents serve time in Positron prison as inmates. On alternating months, they live in Consilience working day jobs and living in comfort, wanting for naught. Seems like a pretty sweet deal, so obviously Charmaine and Stan sign up. Everything is not as it seems.
What started out as a fascinating concept quickly devolved into a book filled with unlikable and shallow characters. Certain plotlines in this book were so ridiculous that I was laughing out loud. Not because it was funny, but because it was so stupid I couldn’t believe it was published. The Boston Globe called this the “Best Book of the Year,” and I want to know. What book were they reading? Because there’s no way it was this one. Stan and Charmaine are some of the most annoying characters I have ever had the displeasure of reading. They live in such a fascinating society that I wanted to learn more about, but instead I had to read about their trivial marital problems, Stan’s sex addiction, and robots that looked like Elvis.
I was shocked by how much I hated this book. I ended up finishing it, but only out of respect for Margaret Atwood. I was left with the impression that she has so many great works already published, by the time she got to this one, everyone was just like “yeah, whatever, I’m sure it’s good” and didn’t even read it before they published it. My hometown newspaper even called it another “Atwood Classic.” Agree to disagree, St. Louis Post Dispatch, but different strokes for different folks I guess.
Read this book and let me know if you hated it as much as I did!
1/5 stars.
required reading 
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