My Evil Mother by Margaret Atwood

A master author with a bewitching title, My Evil Mother is a book that will set you thinking.

It’s a small book, more of a short story, but with a deep essence and meaning. I picked it for the author, fascinated by the title, but it was the fact that it was about women and witches and family that kept me reading from the first page.

Since it is a book by the talented Ms Atwood, I expected to be impressed, however, it was the simplicity of the story that blew me away. My Evil Mother is a story that plays out in most homes, with mothers facing the anger and rage of kids and teens.

Children who feel they know what’s good for them and their mom is just stopping them from enjoying their life.

Seeing the world from a child’s perspective is different from what you realise what could have been as you grow old. My Evil Mother narrates a tale–a fast, short story with a lot of depth about the life of women in an unfair world. How we try to understand our mothers and their actions when going through similar phases in our lives is the crux of this story.

If you enjoy layered, feminist stories; and simple yet powerful writing then My Evil Mother is a must-read.

Black magic and common sense, women with their subtle support systems coupled with kindness and wisdom, this book covers it all in a few pages. I hope all mothers are evil mothers like My Evil Mother.


BLURB


A bittersweet short story about mothers, daughters, and the witches’ brew of love—and control—that binds them, by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments.

Life is hard enough for a teenage girl in 1950s suburbia without having a mother who may—or may not—be a witch. A single mother at that. Sure, she fits in with her starched dresses, string of pearls, and floral aprons. Then there are the hushed and mystical consultations with neighborhood women in distress. The unsavory, mysterious plants in the flower beds. The divined warning to steer clear of a boyfriend whose fate is certainly doomed. But as the daughter of this bewitching homemaker comes of age and her mother’s claims become more and more outlandish, she begins to question everything she once took for granted.