When our English teacher told us we were going to study some Literature, boy was I excited! But the moment she said Canadian, I was like whattttt but I absolutely love American Lit!

So when I started the Blind Assassin, I was like *le sigh*

But let me tell you this book is so beautifully unique, I cry for how amazing it’s written and how different it is from any book I’ve read before!

I’m not exaggerating but Ms. Atwood is incredible at imagery. Her writing style is crispy and clean, and is able to dive deep into details without sinking in to deep. She says enough for us to understand but she doesn’t say anything explicitly. The beauty I believe is in the raw and totally relatable characters and relationships which is what the plot revolves around.

The book is different because there’s a book within a book and switching perspectives, and flashbacks into the past which describe the present. It’s extremely confusing, but everything comes into focus at the climax.

The plot flows smoothly, and seems slow but is a great pace. An elderly woman names Iris Chase is reflecting on her past and the writing style is able to accurately capture how she has come to terms about her past and let go. The story starts off with her younger sister committing suicide at the ripe age of thirty. Iris then goes to explain all the details of her childhood and all the events that lead up to her sister’s suicide. Also various newspaper events are snuck into pages which Iris also explains. She also constantly flashes back to the past when she sees a certain object in her house or place in her town. We get to understand her as a person through how truthfully she describes herself and the way she describes her sister.

At the same time however there is a book called : The Blind Assassin,  in the literal book the Blind Assassin. The book inside that wedges between Iris’ first person is in the third person that overlooks an affair of a man on the run and a wealthy married woman. The man entertains the women through a made up story about a romantic relationship that takes place on the Planet of Zycron that seems to parallel to their tragic fate and romantic endings as well.

Through the process of the book, more hints are dropped of who this mystery woman is and who the man is through details of Iris’ and Laura’s past through Iris’ past accounts.

Readers will be completely dumb founded of what happens at the end. The climax suddenly appears out of nowhere! I was done 75%, and bam the climax happens! And a complete turn around of what I thought would happen, happened! It’s total situational irony, and the woman I thought was the mystery woman wasn’t!

This book was amazing! It kept me turning at the pages because I wanted to understand why the present was the way it was so I turned the pages to read the past and how the events led to the present. I was intrigued at the beginning. Why did a woman who seemed to have it all commit suicide? And who were the two men mentioned at the beginning, why did Iris seem to think that Laura needed to rid herself of Richard and Alex?

As you read, more layers of the past are lifted. Time is travelled through from WWII to the 21st century, and lives are seen through. You literally live beside Iris, and picture everything like she’s walking you through her life again.

Vivid, relatable, raw.