A review by nyquillll
The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

I was not expecting what this book ended up being. Since it’s written by the author who wrote The Handmaid’s Tale, I was thinking there would be, you know, some out there ideas with the overall intent of offering some social commentary. While I do think there was some critiques of society, I was confused as to whether it was meant to be heavy-handed, looked at under a microscope, or taken at surface level.

A lot of the plot didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, and I kept reading to see if there would be payoff and there never was. Even when the plot started picking up (around 80%), the payoff wasn’t there. For a plot that hinged on a lot of things going right, everything went right and I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

ALSO - I fucking hated the (trigger warning)

misogyny, sexism, narcissism, sexualization, harassment, and overall douche-y

behavior of the men in this book. The fact that this idyllic society was found to be

manufacturing sex robots was not completely surprising - but the fact that men in power were trying to make the sex robots extremely lifelike, to the point that they could resemble the women who rejected them, and THEN weren’t happy enough with the results so they turned to other means of “science” that allowed them to alter the brain chemistry of unsuspecting victims and leave them susceptible to IMPRINTING on the first thing they saw once they woke up??? That’s taking violating consent to a whole fucking new level.

Maybe I couldn’t enjoy this book because it didn’t seem like a far-fetched, futuristic idea. It could be something happening now. 

Some redeeming qualities? I liked that the book touched on class and privilege, (didn’t like this as much but I guess I can appreciate the duality and complexity) infidelity and the reasons one might engage in it, unknown and alluring versus known and dreary, how our circumstances (financial, mental, physical, etc) can heavily influence our personalities and can even bring out darker qualities at times, how desperation can make us do unbelievable things, and how important memories are as they help us evaluate the morality of actions and can inspire us to change (or not). 

Anywho, the writing style was really dense, long long paragraphs with few, short breaks with dialogue. It took me longer than I would’ve liked to finish it, and I’m not sure it was much worth it. :/

*Note: Thinking more about this, I feel like I couldn't fully connect with the book because I spent most of the time questioning what was true and what was fiction. I know that certain characters are painted as more questionable - and there are others that are being led. And as the reader, we didn't get any insight into what held credibility, and that made it harder for me to believe what was happening was happening. (I keep going back trying to figure out the social critique of the book - is it warning against the (further) commodification and sexualization of female bodies????)

**An even more dystopian reality where women are even more degraded and dehumanized??? To hammer in how gross and disgusting men are???

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Content Warnings

Quotes I highlighted:

"Most people are good underneath if they have a chance to show their goodness"

"And since it was unrealistic to expect certified criminality from 50 percent of the population, the fair thing would be for everyone to take turns: one month in, one month out."

"She hasn't thought to ask Max about that - whether he and his wife once lived in that earlier house. It isn't the kind of thing she talks about with Max."

"And it turns out she's not as dedicated to tidiness as she used to think."

"Then he's unconscious. Then he stops breathing. The heart goes last."

"Though repetitive melodies can get on the nerves."

"It's an outlet for him: in a gated city with one-way gates, outlets are limited for a man like him."

"Even with modern technology there's always human error"

"Unconscious to him but conscious to her, because she holds them both in her consciousness"

"Though stolen hour doesn't make sense, when you come to think about it. it's like stolen kisses: the stolen hour is about time, and the stolen kisses are about place, about whose lips go where. But how can those things be stolen? Who does the thieving? Is Stan the owner of that hour, and of those kisses too?"

"But - this is a new thought for Charmaine, and it's not a nice one - there were no guarantees about how long that life might last."

"...prison isn't prison, the outside world has no meaning!"

"But isn't it a human right to have a job? Ed believes it is!"

"No need to parade them like this unless it's a demonstration, thinks Stan. A demonstration of power."

"There's a big market for transplant material among aging millionaires, no?"

"'Sufficient to have stood but free to fall,' says Jocelyn."

"She'd feel so unsafe without Stan, and people would gossip about her"

"...not euthanized, not erased, those words are too blunt. Relocated to a different sphere, because they were not suited to the life of Consilience."

"There are only two kinds of people admitted to the Medications Administration wing: those who do and those who are done to."

"He's been the puppet of his own constricted desires."

"But what does freedom mean any more? And who had caged him and walled him off?"

"A grip, Stan, he tells himself. Get two, they're cheap."

"There. Standing on the solid cellar floor, swaying like a, like a. Swaying."

"'I don't think they'll ever replace the living and breathing,' says Gary. 'They said that about e-books,' says Kevin. 'You can't stop progress.'"

"Most of the work is being done by robotics attaching one thing to another, robots making other robots..."

"...women in danger of being strangled should avoid any fashion accessories that tie around the neck."

"The past is so much safer, because whatever's in it has already happened. It can't be changed; so, in a way, there's nothing to dread."

"Stan isn't actually in a coffin there, but he's dead, so it won't count as cheating."

"'Yeah, we really have to tiptoe through the tulips on this one,' says Budge."

"Why are important men called big cheeses? Charmaine wonders..."

"This is thin ice. Powerful men don't take well to rejection. Rage could result."

"They're boxed in flannelette sheets, and each one has a bear tucked into the package for extra-realistic effect."

"'That is fucking sick,' says Stan."

"Get through it, you windbag, she thinks at Ed."

"I'm just plain frigid when it comes to real live men. The mere thought of them in that way makes me feel a little sick."

"He's having a sexbot made in your image."

"'They can't do that!' says Charmaine. 'Without even asking me!'"

"'An appropriate decision,' says Aurora. 'I'm sure you'll come to realize that, in time. You'll be helping me - you'll be helping us - more than you know. Here, have a cookie."

"Is that all we are? he thinks. Unmistakable clothing, a hairstyle, a few exaggerated features, a gesture?"

"He should have cherished her more"

"Drop those women or I'll sing 'Heartbreak Hotel.' It won't be pretty."

"Can you stop thinking like a pre-human sex-crazed baboon for maybe just one minute?"

"Did crying count as talking back? Yes, it did, because after that something bad happened. Let that be a lesson to you. But what was the lesson?"

"We've been killing ourselves trying to approximate that body-brain combo!"

"But Conor himself has always craved the spotlight, so he's had himself inserted as a gong player."

"She's mostly just a body to him, and now he wants to turn her into only a body."

"If Con should suddenly rush off toward, for instance, an ambulance that might, for instance, be pulling up in front of the facility, and if the other fake Green Men should rush off with him..."

"In response, some said that these utopian schemes always went bad and turned into dictatorships, because human nature was what it was."

"Happily they didn't shave off her hair; that would have been unsightly."

"Is it right that the happiness of her married life should be due not to any special efforts on her part but to a brain operation she didn't even agree to have?"

"...they could always opt for Winnie's second name, which is Stanlita."

"If you do bad things for reasons you've been told are good, does it make you a bad person?"

"'You can choose,' says Jocelyn. 'To hear it or not. If you hear it, you'll be more free but less secure. If you don't hear it, you'll be more secure, but less free.'"

"'Simply this,' says Jocelyn. 'You never had that operation. That brain adjustment.'"

"'You want your decisions taken away from you so you won't be responsible for your own actions? That can be seductive, as you know.'"

"'As they say in court, you're free to go. The world is all before you, where to chose.' 'How do you mean?' says Charmaine."