Title: The Handmaid's Tale
Author: Margaret Atwood
Series: Handmaid's Tale #1
Genre: Dystopian, Literary Fiction
Format: Paperback
Pages: 311
Reason Read: Book Club
Rating:

My Thoughts

I knew THE HANDMAID’S TALE was a dystopian story, but I didn’t really know what the story was about. As I started reading it, I realized I was in for a little bit of a surprise because it seemed so different from other dystopians I’ve read.

The concept of the story was very interesting and thought-provoking, but there are several things that prevented me from enjoying it as much as I could have. I didn’t like that the reader never found out why the world was the way it was. It kept hinting at why everything happened, but never actually said. I also thought it was extremely depressing. I like dystopians, but I like dystopians that have some semblance of hope, a way for the oppressed to fight what’s being done to them. There’s none of that in this story. I had a hard time with Atwood’s writing style. It was told in a rambling, disconnected way from the protagonist’s POV. There was very little dialogue–instead the characters’ thoughts are mostly offset by commas.

While I can see that the events in this world were plausible, I felt like Atwood went a little overboard with the man-hating. The man-hating in this book seemed to follow the mentality of: “I want you to stop oppressing me and I want to do it back to you without it being wrong. I also want more rights than you because I had less before.” I didn’t like this mentality. It didn’t solve anything.

Even though I didn’t enjoy the book all that much, I’m still glad I read it. It helped open my eyes to some of the thoughts and leanings of our society. It helped me realize that while some may think this day in age is more vulgar and morally corrupt than previous ones, I’d rather live in a time when I can choose freely what I want to do and who I want to be than live in a time when everything is dictated by heresy and the beliefs of one group or faction.