Rating: 
Summary: beautiful book
Review: This is a book you can read over and over. I read it about ten years ago and I still remember the poetic treatment Atwood gave to even mundane things like a shower curtain. The book has a strange, dreamy feel and yet, at the same time, it is real and easy to identify with.
Rating:
Summary: Young Atwood - Feminism and consumerism
Review: This is early Atwood. Far from being as refined as her later work (this was written in her 20s) the novel is nonetheless successful. A critique of women's roles in society. Atwood conveys the experience of a society driven by consumerism (it is no coincidence that Marian works for a market research company). Food symbolizes much. The protagonist, Marian, feels herself not only unable to eat but actually being consumed. She begins to struggle as she is devoured by those around her - Peter wants to consume even her image (she mistakes his camera for a gun). In the end Marian offers herself up to be eaten in the form of a cake. The catalyst for her change in emotioanal state is clearly her engagement. As she eats less and less we see her fears surface and the reader follows her to the edge of "reality" and delusion. Is the unnaturally thin Duncan even 'real'? A terrific book. I recommend any fiction or poetry (try 'Eating Fire') by Atwood.
Rating:
Summary: Refreshingly Real
Review: This is only the third Margaret Atwood novel I have read--having picked them all up at various flea markets and discount stores on a whim. I am a woman who usually does not identify with female authors, most of whom seem too aware of being "female authors" to tell a straightforward story without feminist propaganda. _The Edible Woman_, however, really hit me on a visceral level. Marian is the same age as I and has a similar perspective. She has a kitchen sink with molding dishes and a refrigerator whose innards seem to be growing. She has a college education and a job that she has no emotional attachement to, in fact she is horrified when forced to sign on to a retirement package, feeling tied to forever to an apathetic existence. She occasionally feels invisible when in a room with others, particularly it seems around her fiancee, at one point sliding between a bed and a wall while her friends quaff gin and play with camera equipment, never noticing she is gone until she is squashed under the bed as one of them sits down. She seems to be wandering through life without a purpose and clings onto the idea of being a wife by becoming almost accidentally engaged to an "ideal" man. Soon after this she finds herself slowly being nauseated by different sorts of food. If the young ladies in this book didn't dress up so much and drink alcohol and smoke while pregnant it would seem very much a generation X novel! Starring apathetic protagonists Marian and Duncan, who both manage to be vivid characters in spite of the fact that they seem to spend most of their time just floating through life. A large part of the novel's strength is its well rounded secondary characters from Ainsley, Marian's single connivingly procreating room-mate, to Clara a somewhat disgruntled mother, to Duncan's slightly deranged grad-school room-mates. This was a very fun book filled with characters I can imagine meeting among my own group of friends.
Rating: 
Summary: Creativly Eye Opening
Review: This novel quickly gets you interested and involved. I definitly recommend it to anyone trying to make sense out of their lives.
Rating:
Summary: ATWOOD ALL THE WAY!
Review: This was my first Margaret Atwood novel. After reading it, I realized my standards have been much to low. Atwood showed me how interesting and bizarre a story can be, how many layers it can have, the beauty of the English language. Plus, it didn't hurt that a lot of it took place in some very familiar settings, making me feel nostalgiac. How can I go back to reading "popular fiction" after experiencing her breathtaking style? From now on, it's Atwood all the way, baby! Anyone who hasn't already picked up a novel by this talented lady of letters, take the Atwood plunge; you'll be doing yourself a favour.
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