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Title: Bodily Harm

Author: Margaret Atwood

Narrator: Bonnie Hurren

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-02-11

Publisher: Random House AudioBooks

Ratings: 2.5 of 5 out of 3 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Rennie Wilford, a young jounalist running from her life, takes an assignment to a Caribbean island and tumbles into a world where no one is what they seem. When the burnt-out Yankee Paul (does he smuggle dope or hustle for the CIA?) offers her a no-hooks, no strings affair, she is caught up in a lethal web of corruption.

Members Reviews:

Not her best, but she's still the best

Atwood is a genius. This book takes you on an adventure, but isn't as deep as her other books.

Disturbing But Necessary

I was enchanted by Bodily Harm because of its blatantly poco premise about a Canadian journalist who inadvertently goes to a former British colony of St. Antoine during a political coup. Regardless of which real Caribbean nation it's based on, like all of Atwood's work, I found her ability to render a place and its feeling with exquisite detail remarkable. What I found more problematic in this text was her inability to fully render minor characters. I suspect this was intentional because Rennie, the heroine, despite her profession, lacks the ability to read people and their intentions. This deliberate opaqueness also adds to the element of suspense, and I would like to teach the novel in seminar with more about its context. It also provides an interesting snapshot of the third-waive malaise in North American feminism that I want to reflect upon further.

Not for the Faint of Heart

The title must tell it all: This young-ish woman, who has definitely been around the block and is a successful writer of light pieces for light magazines, is a breast cancer survivor - or maybe she won't survive. She can't be sure. She feels mutilated and unwilling to expose her now-changed and harmed body to the scrutinies of her lover, Jake; he feels somewhat squeamish too, despite his proclivity for outrageous and rough sex. Her crush on her doctor seems to be also going to prevent any such intimacies from occurring, as he is loyally married. [Well, sort of.] The climax of the first half of this book takes place when Rennie's finds her apartment broken into and a coil of rope left on her bed. Feeling, as who wouldn't, that she needs a complete change of scene, she books a flight to one of the world's least lovely spots, a small Caribbean island that has, for good reasons, been overlooked by tourists, travelers and developers. [Why she made this weird choice is worthy of discussion.] Nothing could be grimmer than her hotel and its ghastly "amenities", or the ugly, primitive town, or the cast of dubious characters she becomes involved with. Most want to do her some sort of harm by getting her involved in a political situation that quickly explodes into a chaotic and bloody revolution that turns out to be a nightmare for her and her once-acquaintance and now cell-mate, Lora. Lora becomes a staunch pal who endures tortures and [probably] rape-like sex to provide Rennie with such small perks as a hairbrush and chewing gum.