Rating: 
Summary: I'm not sure what we've got here.
Review: Now that I've finished the book, I find myself puzzled by some of the effusive praise in these reviews. I didn't have any trouble with the complexity of the material or the combining of the three layers of the book. In fact, I looked forward to the switching back and forth. I really liked the juxtaposition of newspaper articles with Laura's novel. These articles crisply and easily set the time and place and moved the plot along.The book starts entertainingly and ends pretty powerfully. The tale within a tale within a tale is bizarre, sci-fi fun. The tale within the tale is dark and often intriguing, but the tale itself is often simply dull. There were moments I set the book down and had a hard time motivating myself to pick it up again. It is at times extremely slow-going. Compared with the classic "The Handmaid's Tale," which was tense and thorough and impossible to put down, this one is imminently put-downable until the last 100 pages or so. Margaret Atwood is obviously a great literary figure, but here she needed a really good editor who wasn't afraid to rein her in and point out some seemingly self-indulgent or misdirected effort. But her considerable talent does shine through -- there is often a poetic, lyrical use of words here -- some of her phrasing is so poignant it made me stop and read it over and over. For the lover of words, the book is well worth your time. But plot-wise there is no love here -- the emotion, that is. It's really depressing -- and cold. No excitement, no passion. Yet, when all is said and done, once I had finished the book I knew I had finished SOMEthing. It was hefty. It was literature. I am grateful for the experience.
Rating: 
Summary: An engaging read!
Review: I have read several of Margaret Atwood's novels and I would undoubtedly classify this as her best. Atwood pulls off an odd blend of science fiction, family expose, social commentary and the relationship of two sisters with aplomb. The format of a novel within a novel reflects the bold originality of this novel. Atwood stirs up a mixture of emotions throughout the novel and all of the characters are richly drawn and open for inspection by the reader. This novel always leaves you guessing up until the very last chapters. Do not listen to those who claim the ending is weak! The ending is the strongest component of the novel and it wraps up the novel both as a mystery and as a family drama perfectly.
Rating:
Summary: An incredible tour de force, a dazzling mosaic.
Review: What Margaret Atwood does here is the equivalent of doing a jigsaw puzzle--or, more to the point, fashioning a mosaic--while walking across Niagara Falls on a tightrope. Without a single misstep, she takes the reader back and forth between newspaper articles, an erotic and fanciful novel-within-a-novel, and an old lady's final memoirs to tell the mysterious, haunting story of the Chase sisters, Iris and Laura. The structure--despite the constantly shifting viewpoint--is rock-solid, the writing precise and poetic; Atwood hammers in the final piece of the mosaic--at which point, and only then, the final picture becomes clear--with an almost audible sigh of satisfaction at a job well done. "The Blind Assassin'' is a model of the novelist's craft, combining the propulsive, page-turning pleasure of any bestseller with the moral seriousness and attention to language that readers demand of high art.
Rating:
Summary: If this book doesn't win the Booker Prize....
Review: If this book doesn't win the Booker Prize, then Margaret Atwood will never get to give Thomas Mallon his much-deserved comeuppance for the snide review he wrote of it for the New York Times Book Review. Because I respect Mallon and have enjoyed more than one of his books, I took this review to heart (fool that I am), wasting several weeks before discovering for myself how much fun I've been missing out on! Perhaps, however, Mallon was just playing the role of "The Blind Assassin" when he wrote it. Because of the number of excellent plot summaries already posted here, I'll save the space and not repeat them. Atwood's female characters here are as complex and intriguing as they are in Cat's Eye. Her descriptions are so specific that every aspect of the setting comes vibrantly to life, and it is easy to imagine every detail (yes, even the much maligned simile of a loaf of bread as bland-tasting "as an angel's buttock"). The plot evolves on three distinct, but parallel, plains, giving a triple whammy to Atwood's themes, while several different time frames keep the story full of mystery and excitement. Best of all, Atwood brings all the threads of the story together for a truly thrilling, rock 'em, sock 'em grand finale. If you've been wondering why the odds are so good that Atwood will win the Booker, read the book. This will certainly NOT be a consolation prize!
Rating:
Summary: What a piece of work
Review: This is not just some fluff book. I enjoyed reading this novel in a novel and that is only one of the many pieces to it. Myself along with two other friends and my mother read the book to discuss it in our bookclub. We printed the bookclub discussion questions off the publishers website and I found this helpful to reach a more indepth meaning to this outstanding work. Read this book when you have time to enjoy it. By my level of concentration I could not have enjoyed this book if I was reading it along with riding the exercise bike or at the gym etc. I hope you will enjoy it. My friends admit it was hard to get into at first but as we kept on.. it was well worth it.
Rating:
Summary: an excellent puzzler
Review: Once again Margaret Atwood truly delivers a stunner of a novel.In The Blind Assassin Atwood not only delivers 1 but 2 equally intersting stories-1 a woman looking back on her life and the other a sci-fi novel written by her sister before her untimely death.The novel truly begins to pick up speed when Atwood introduces us to the girls' later lives,and what became of them as they grew.When the end comes,you can truly sympathize with all that happened to the main character.In all,a truly unmissable read.
Rating: 
Summary: Defies description...
Review: I originally read "Blind Assassin" on a half-joking dare from a friend, no fan of Margaret Atwood's, who challenged me to figure out "in 100 pages or less, what mind-altering substance [Atwood] was using when writing this book." I've now read the thing twice through, and while "Blind Assassin" does have a number of brilliant plot twists and insightful points that make it worth reading, it also has a very disjointed, jarring style that makes it on the whole very difficult to follow. Yes, it reads like an acid trip on paper; yes, it is a great novel. (Bear with me, I'll explain the dichotomy in a moment.) The book, like most of Atwood's work, has a rather Gothic overtone to it; central to the plot are the machinations and trials of a decaying upper-class Toronto family. We see this fall from four different viewpoints at once: that of young Iris Chase, heiress of a failing provincial manufacturing family; that of old Iris Chase-Griffen, writing memoirs of a life of familial and marital struggles (to put it lightly); that of Iris Chase writing as Laura Chase in the titular (and autobiographical) novel "The Blind Assassin," a tale of sordid love affairs and pulp fiction; and that of the Toronto print media through a series of newspaper and magazine clippings. Though each plotline has some superficial connection to the others, there is never any effort made to link them, and I found myself rereading the book in tiny segments, jumping from chapter to chapter to follow each of the plotlines. The book's endings (all four of them) seemed forced, and the "last" ending gives the reader a very eerie sense of looking through a dead woman's eyes. This book requires far more effort to read than it should (look at Atwood's outstanding works "Alias Grace" and "The Handmaiden's Tale" for comparison), but then again nobody ever accused Atwood of writing Pablum for the masses. That said, the book did have a number of bright points. I loved the acerbic commentary from old Iris on the state of our mass-produced, overhyped world, and I found much of young Iris and Laura's conversations about life, death and God to be wonderfully thought-provoking. I also enjoyed the mini-mystery over the real paterrnity of Iris' daughter, and the portrayal of partners in crime Richard and Winifred Griffen was just twisted enough to nauseate without totally repelling. They're not quite as good as, say, a Richard III or an Iago, but they are a nice modern study of psychosis in power. The first time I read "Blind Assassin" through, I rated it a 1 on my 5-star scale. The second time, I rated it 5. I split the difference for this review, but this book really isn't one you can average out. Either you'll love it or you'll hate it... it all depends on your point of view.
Rating: 
Summary: Too much work
Review: I really wanted to like this novel because I loved Alias Grace, but it was just too much work to keep up with the characters AND the sci fi novel the one sister wrote (altho that did seem to be the more interesting story of the two). The Blind Assassin did not hold my interest. I like to be swept away by the characters and this did not happen in this book.
Rating:
Summary: A magnificent work!
Review: This book should win every prize there is. It is both exquisitely crafted and a "good read" besides. It speaks to many of our deepest emotions -- love (both romantic and parental), hate, patriotism, the desire for social justice, greed -- and explores with sensitivity and subtlety the issues of mental illness, domestic violence, misogyny and child abuse. Its portrait of upper-class life in the 1930's and 1940's is nothing short of remarkable. This is a book I will keep on my bookshelf forever, in a treasured position.
Rating: 
Summary: too heavy going
Review: I tried to stick with it, but the story bounces around too much for me to really get interested. Would prefer the development of story line not bounce so much
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