Cat's Eye Reading Order

Cat's Eye (1988) by Margaret Atwood is a novel about memory, female cruelty, and the strange persistence of the past in the present. Elaine Risley, a painter returning to Toronto for a retrospective of her work, finds herself ambushed by memories of her childhood friendship with Cordelia — a friendship that, between the ages of eight and twelve, was organized around Cordelia's systematic psychological cruelty toward Elaine. The novel alternates between Elaine's adult present and her childhood past, examining how the girl she was shaped the woman she became, and how childhood cruelties leave marks that never entirely heal. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1989 and is often cited alongside The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace as one of Atwood's finest novels.