I'm utterly flummoxed how I expected this to turn out less dire than it did. After all, the bulk of her work is pretty grim. 

That said, Atwood did not disappoint. Her writing is flawless and makes me green. This almost novella follows cancer survivor Rennie as she escapes two failed relationships for an assignment in an unnamed Caribbean island nation where instead of writing the travel piece she was meant to, she gets embroiled in the island's political upheavals. 

On the surface, there doesn't seem very much to the story and nothing notable happens for most of it. However, with the glimpses into Rennie's past, we see how her actions and the events that happen to her stem from it. The ending, while seemingly grim and unresolved, is brilliantly contrived leaving me with a sense that it ties in beautifully with Rennie's state of mind. Did she engineer her own self-destruction? Or was she simply a victim of circumstances?

So much meat in such a small dish. Par the course for one of my favourite authors.