I have written a rather epic and fairly mixed review of this novel (which, in passing, somehow manages to include my opinions on most of Kingsolver's work) on Amazon, but I can't work out how to cut and paste it into here (any advice on this would be gratefully accepted) so I'll post the link instead: scroll up (and up) for epic review However, the purpose of this post is not to showcase my Amazon reviewing, but to ask a question I didn't think it was worth posing on Amazon: basically, although I think both are excellent writers, I seem to have similar problems with some of Kingsolver's work that I have with all of Margaret Atwood's (or at least, all the Atwood novels I've read, which would be Cat's Eye, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, The Handmaid's Tale, The Penelopiad.) Namely, that obvious morals and obvious symbolism often let down the story as a whole. Of the two, I'm inclined to say Kingsolver is the better writer. Is this horribly controversial?
