The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)

by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale is a radical departure for Margaret Atwood. Set in the near future, in a locale that oddly resembles Cambridge, Massachusetts, it describes life in what was once the United States. Now, however, it has become the Republic of Gilead, a monolithic theocracy that has reacted to social unrest and a sharply declining birthrate by reverting to the repressive intolerance of the original Puritans, and has gone far beyond them. This regime takes the Book of Genesis absolutely at its word, with bizarre consequences for women, and for men as well.

The story is told through the eyes of Offred, one of the unfortunate "Handmaids" under the new social order. In condensed but eloquent prose, by turns cool-eyed, tender, despairing, passionate, and wry, she reveals to us the dark corners behind the establishment's calm facade, as certain tendencies now in existence are carried to their logical conclusions.

the Handmaid's Tale is A Clockwork Orange as seen by women: unexpected, funny, horrifying, and altogether convincing. the book is at once a mordant satire and a dire warning. this is Atwood in top form.
--front flap

Reviewed by Ashley on

3 of 5 stars

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I like the TV show way more. I think the only reason I'm giving this as high as three stars is just because the overall concept is so interesting. The actual execution was shallow and boring.

- There's no more information in the book than the TV show. In fact, there's probably less. So if you're looking for more detail, you won't get any.

- It's written as a stream of consciousness. So we might get an entire page talking about what the garden looks like. Yawn.

- There's so little world building and practically zero backstory for anyone. Even the TV show had me itching for more detail and more history. The book had even less.

- There was nothing satisfying about the ending for two reasons:

1) It was fairly open ended.
2) Because the whole book barely skimmed the surface of anything, I never really came to care about the main character. I wasn't particularly bothered by anything that happened to her.

The TV show got me way more invested. There was more detail into the atrocities, which made me get outraged and thus care. There was more information about how the world got into that state (still not a ton, but more, at least). There was more exploration into Serena Joy's character, which made you see how insanely desperate she was to have a child, which added to the overall story.

If I hadn't watched the TV show prior to reading this book, I doubt I would have finished it. I would have been confused about what was happening, bored out of my mind, and felt like I had no reason to continue.

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Reading updates

  • 25 December, 2019: Started reading
  • 28 December, 2019: Finished reading
  • 28 December, 2019: Reviewed