Margaret Atwood

My Evil Mother

Leon

Seher Mohsin

My mother had a thing for blue in tableware; she said it warded off any evil eyes intent on ruining the food.

(Worth it, she said: only the wild ones had souls.)

“Why would I care about the tittle-tattle of the uninformed?

“They may not like me, but they respect me. Respect is better than like.”

I very much wanted to be liked. My mother frequently said I’d have to give up that frivolous desire if I was going to amount to anything. She said that wanting to be liked was a weakness of character.

I certainly didn’t want any pointing going on; pointing was how you directed a spell.

She says I don’t have the sense God gave a goose.”

“It’s hard living with someone who’s always right.

Lara Engle

What a fun, witchy, mother-daughter tale!

Andrew John Kinney

I love that Margaret Atwood is still producing high quality stories. Gives the rest of us a bit of hope.

Maria 

This may be Short but it’s really something. This is my first book by Margaret Atwood and I will be reading more

C. J. Daley 

This is an Amazon Publishing short story, so it is available to read for free under Prime reading. It’s been a while, but I am an Atwood stan, so I had to read immediately after stumbling upon it. 

To me, the title is based on the generic views of a teenage girl—arguably, any teenager (typically) feels the same at some point in their lives. Her mother claims to be anything but normal, or rather the neighborhood claims it for he…be it a potionist, or looney, or even a witch if you will. I loved the way Atwood handled this in such a short amount of time. Could her mother have actually been all of these things? Sure. Is any of it definite? No. 

If you have some time, I implore you to read this. This is all kinds of witty, funny, and loving. So many little tiny things will resonate with you from your parents. How they behave, talk, what they will do to protect you, how they’ll allow themselves to be perceived. It made me miss my own mother, even with the title like ‘My Evil Mother’…mine is anything but “evil” FYI. 

A great, lyrical, poetic short story. Exactly what you should expect from Margaret Atwood. Personally a 5/5*