Review: I’m Starved For You
I’m Starved For You is a Kindle Single published by Byliner Originals, who specialize in short pieces from great authors. It is also from Margaret Atwood, and I’ll read almost anything she writes.
I found it enjoyable, but surprisingly it felt a little rushed. Atwood often bases her worlds on simple ideas taken to their extremes, and I would have expected the simple ideas to be more compelling in a short story than in a novel. Somehow the simplicity of the underlying idea stuck out more here. Questions about the logistics and motivations of the system that I often don’t consider came to me in the shorter form.
I think this is because Atwood’s novels often move at a slower pace, bringing the ideas and the characters out into focus slowly, drawing the reader toward exactly the way she wants you to see them. In the shorter form, she wasn’t able to exert the same kind of control. At least that was the impression I got from this piece.
While I don’t think this is the best example of Atwood’s writing, it certainly has its merits. She brings ideas of how humans react to even self-imposed confinement with desperate passion into play in distinctive, powerful ways. And those are not the only ideas she lofts onto the table in a few pages.
Overall, I prefer other things she’s written, but this is a fine way to spend some time.
Recommended.