The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood (2015-09-24)

Charmaine is the type of character I find most irritating -- profoundly stupid, yet relentlessly upbeat. Somehow Atwood made me care about her and everyone else in this dystopian, prophetic dream of a novel -- though I really, really hope she decides to write more about Stan's utterly awesome brother. The guy needs his own series of novels, I swear.

This is A typical Margaret Atwood novel. I always look forward to them The current is clearly dystopian and can be painful if one takes it as serious. This one is goes into a future unlikely scene. But if your style, by al means read it.

Got a bit silly towards the end with mind-altering surgeries, but then I signed up for a story where characters choose to spend half their time incarcerated. Not my favourite Margaret Atwood novel, but interesting read.

There are obviously many things to think about, but the story line is not innovative, nor are any of the characters truly believable. They, like the plot, are stereotyped and there is no depth of feeling or compassion involved with any of them. It is more a statement of our present day dilemma between a socialistic state and a capitalistic one.

There are not enough stars to indicate truly how much I enjoyed this novel. No one does dystopia better than Margaret Atwood and no one enjoys dystopia more than I do so i reckon it's a match made in heaven. She paints a vividly stark and terrifying future that is at times hysterical and powerful creepy at the same time. I believe the room full of gay Elvis sex robots illustrates this horrific transhumanism nightmare the best. If there is a God (and Lord knows I've got my doubts) and if She has any influence in this realm then my prayer today is that The Heart Goes Last is simply the first book in another glorious trilogy and not just a stand alone novel. And Father, Mother, God, Great Spirit, you know I ask for very little, so pretty please? I promise I'll be a better person from now on and I really mean it this time.

Imaginative and provocative. It covers important emerging issues. While the humor makes those issues palatable, it undercut the importance of the topics she covers for me. Glad I read it--I am a huge Atwood fan. It just did;t have quite the power of some of her earlier novels.

Another one of Atwood's bitter utopies although less hellishly dark than the Handmaid's Tale. Here all's well that ends well although the depths of man's susceptibility to an authoritarian world of the controllers and the controlled is clearly displayed. Great writing!

If Positron Episode Three was a placeholder, Episode Four is a rollercoaster, hurtling the reader towards the climax of this dystopian satire. Stan has made contact with the underground, both inside and outside Positron, as friendly a bunch of working stiffs as you'll ever meet and Charmaine is trying out her twin roles of grieving widow and coerced murderess. Along the way we are introduced to sexbots and finally learn why the ladies are knitting those endless, sweet, blue bears. Atwood riffs a bit in this section on the tried and true parody that is gender politics and the reader does wonder a bit what market there is for these fancy toys in the economic Armageddon Atwood described in the previous installments, but Atwood fiddling is better than most writing full bore so I'm willing to believe that all of these disparate elements can fit together.

In Episode Four, Atwood's themes become most apparent. Atwood is obsessed not only with mortal evil, but with venal evil and delineating just where to draw the line when little evil transforms into big evil. Is it cumulative? Repetitive? Is it the existence of both the mortal and the venal that undoes us as individuals and as a species? Our willingness to overlook the venal or our unwillingness to look closely at our own harmless pleasures and little vices? All great questions and Atwood doesn't provide easy answers or very hopeful ones. No sweeping redemption here, but there is the everyday grace of personal revelation and forgiveness hidden in the story like change in a couch cushion. Gracenotes of compassion in a sea of bile.

At points in the work entire so far, I felt that Atwood was treading her familiar grounds and themes in ways that didn't always make sense in terms of the world building (take one part consumer catastrophe and mix with with one part late capitalist greed and excess, add a dash of gender division at levels both political and personal and blend well with a dash of zany impossibilities) but I love Atwood's obsessions even when she is mixing up a pork cake. Atwood may not have much hope for us as a whole, but she still cares passionately and her dissection of the parts of our nature we ignore to our peril is keen to say the very least. I'll be buying all of the remaining installments as soon as they're released.

The opening and Middle sections of this book were Atwood at her best but the end disappointed. For some reason the two Central characters were not big enough to carry the weight of the final section of the novel. I felt I had to read it again in case I'd missed something. Still an interesting futuristic world presented. Definitely glad I read it.

Easy read, entertaining and refreshing. The book is engaging and very original. I would recommend it to anyone. I wonder how Oryx and Crake is? One could only wonder. I also wonder if Marge was inspired by Orwell's 1984. Anyway, enough of me rambling on, read this piece!

I love Margaret Atwood. When I started this book, I loved it. But as I continued reading, Atwood kinda lost me. This is not one of my favorite of her books. I love her craziness, but this one really just didn't flow.

I love Margaret Atwood, so maybe expectations are set too high. This book will not be in my favorites, therefore giving 3 stars. Beginning captured me, but later in the book the author was telling the story 'from a distance'. Very precise, detailed, realistic but no emotions. I wanted to find out how the story will end, but did not particularly care about any of the characters.

The latest installment in the Positron serials finds Stan and Charmaine dealing with their new positions in life. Charmaine is expected to mourn for Stan, who she thinks is dead by her own hand, while being hit on by the "big cheese" of Positron. Stan finds himself in on a secret mission to bring down the system and ends the installment packed away in a box of sex bots dressed as Elvis. These have proven to be very bizarre stories about Atwood's idea of a social experiment in which people live half their lives in jail and half their lives working for the new system. The world would be a very scary place indeed with a complete lack of civil liberties... it hits a bit close to home in so many ways!

I've read several of Margaret Atwood's books, and usually enjoyed them. This was a disappointment. The characters (and the writing) are shallow, and the plot was formulaic. She has much better books out there.

What started out as an ominous tale of felonious dealings with human beings ended in slapstick, which is okay if you want slapstick. I unfortunately expect deeper thoughts from Atwood. I still love you though, Margaret.

Different tone from most Atwood novels - almost breezy, which is deceiving. As with Oryx and Crake, The Heart Goes Last is a frightening because it could conceivably happen. But it's also laugh out loud funny a lot of the time as well.

Atwood is such a powerful writer and will always be a favorite ... not going to spend a lot of time on a review of this book. Atwood even with a weak entry is still a force. This just wasn't the force that one usually associates with her work. The story is told from the perspective of people inside something of a cult, albeit one that provides protection and comfort in a world coming apart. Yet Atwood is most powerful when she is more of an omnipresence. Especially in some of her dystopian work, the atmosphere is so weighted, so oppressive, the reader is almost at the shoulder of the protagonist. The protagonists of "Heart" are mostly dupes and I felt, as a reader, much the same.

Margaret Atwood does it again. She has created characters and a plot that are curious, riveting, and disturbing. The main characters' life at the beginning is heartbreaking, and the agony they endure just trying to live is believable. Atwood brings them to a place where they can be safe and live a "meaningful life", and we readers fall into their world. It is only by Atwood's deft hand that can a modern prison, Elvis impersonators, chickens, infidelity, and robots be interwoven so beautifully.

I look forward to my second read through of this book. The first time, I tend to rush through the book, reflect for a week, then re-visit the book in a month or two. The Heart Goes Last did not seem to reach as far down into the dark depths of some of Atwood's prior novels, but in no way is any less of a treat.

Definitely NOT Margaret Atwood's best work. Writing felt juvenile. Characters not interesting at all. Interesting concept, but I continuously got bored while reading it. If it was not an Atwood book (hoping it would get better) I would have put it down way before the beginning.