Review: The Robber Bride

The Robber Bride
by Margaret Atwood

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Robber Bride / 0-553-56905-8

Author Margaret Atwood loves to skillfully explore the dynamics of relationships, but while most of her novels explore relationships between women and men, "The Robber Bride" breaks the mold by delving into relationships between women and other women. Three women protagonists are brought together into a unique friendship through a shared enemy - a former schoolmate - and through the shared devastation wrought by this woman.

Zenia, the robber bride, rips her way through the lives of these women, stealing their men, their money, and their pride. Posing as a friend, she manages to weasel her way closest to each woman's heart, before tearing it out and vanishing from their lives. The attacks are all the more startling because each woman had hoped to help Zenia, to protect her from the world of men and harsh realities, while also hoping to be a little more like Zenia - even as they pity her, they envy her.

Thrown together by crisis and circumstance, not like war veterans, these women cling tenuously to the things that they have managed to scrape together in Zenia's wake: one woman treasures her husband, another her child, the third her career. They are content, and sometimes even happy, but the wounds that Zenia has left behind will linger forever. Their friendship sustains them, even as it reminds them of what they have lost, and even as Zenia leaves them as mysteriously as she first appeared.

~ Ana Mardoll

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