Short read, but it was not for me. I found it rather boring. Maybe I just didn't get it? I didn't connect with the characters in this story or the story itself. It feels like grandma telling me stories about people I don't even know (which actually has it charmes).

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribd for providing an ARC of this book!

Two Scorched Men is a new story from Margaret Atwood, who is so lauded for her fictional worlds, but now delves into her own history and of those around her with just as much elegance. In it, she recalls two men she once knew, both affected by WWII, both bound to die and leave her, as Atwood puts it, with the feeling that they entrusted her with turning them into words and more than just dust.
It's both heart-warming and heart-breaking, funny and melancholic, a swift mix of beautiful words that does justice to the pain of remembering those who are gone. Atwood does justice to both of her friends and to her own feelings regarding life and death, with beautiful prose that at times hurts like a punch. Highly recommended.

Two fictional characters created by Margaret derived from her own life: John, a hotheaded Englishman, who served in the Royal Navy during World War II and barely survived the deadly battles in the South Pacific; and François, a wry and affable Frenchman, who was once an operative in the French Resistance and led a life shaped by tragedy.

She wrote it so distinctly to tell us that we live our lives through both harsh and glitter that we are not perfect and all we have with us as we grow old is a memories of hardships, friendship and pain.