by Sun Meilan

Created on: December 13, 2008

A divorced woman returns to the island of her birth with her new boyfriend, Joe, and two friends, Anna and David. David wants to do some filming, but the main reason for her return is to search for her father, who has gone missing. This, and the familiar territory, evoke many memories in her, and she is forced to sit down and consider who she really is. Will she 'find' herself? Will she find her father? And will things ever return to normal again?

Margaret Attwood is, without a doubt, a brilliant writer and I have enjoyed several of her books, most notably Blind Assassin, The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace. She has written a couple of duds though - I remember Bodily Harm as being particularly pointless. As Surfacing is one of her earlier pieces of work, I wasn't really sure what to expect, but obviously hoped it would be up there with my favourites. I can honestly say though, that although it has its advantages, it is one of the strangest and possibly pointless books I have read in a long time.

Everything starts off well. As soon as I discovered that the narrator, who remains nameless throughout the book, and her friends were going to stay on a remote island, my interest was piqued. I love stories set on islands, there is something comforting about them. And initially, this one reminded me very much of Coastliners, by Joanne Harris, which also involved a girl returning to her home island, forced to think about who she really is. I loved the descriptions of the island - they are very crisp and clear and I really felt as though I could see what was being described. I also liked the suggestion of a mystery - the woman's missing father - and hoped that this would become an integral part of the story.

None of the characters are particularly likeable, although they are well described, and I found it very hard to identify with them. The narrator is a really cold fish, so much so that she left her husband and child behind without so much of a backward glance. She freely admits that she is incapable of love - even her new man is just someone she lives with rather than loves. There is a suggestion though that we are going to find out what makes her tick, some childhood trauma that affected her mental health, but unless I'm missing something, nothing is really resolved.

Joe, the boyfriend, is a very shadowy creature, who only begins to get vaguely interesting near the end. His partner's coldness towards him did inspire some sympathy though. As for David and Anna, they are

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