The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Am I the last person on this planet to read anything by Margaret Atwood? Probably. I’ll also let it be known right away that I have not seen the tv series, but knowing that it was quite popular it inspired me to pick up The Handmaid’s Tale and give it a go.

To say I enjoyed this book would be a bit of a stretch, but that’s not to say I didn’t find it interesting. Anything regarding a dystopia needs to be absorbed slowly and carefully. First it was understanding how women’s roles changed back to something beyond the times of suffrage, and wrapping your head around that. Then it was getting used to Offred’s narrative and how she floated in and out of the past and present.

There are so many things about The Handmaid’s Tale that I found interesting that I can’t really mention without spoiling it for anyone who lives under the same rock I do and hasn’t read and/or watched the series. I will say that I was captivated by Offred’s story and was curious to see if she would ever find what she was looking for. It was also a shocker to see where Atwood took this hyper-religious, post-apocalyptic world. It was a little creepy in quite a few ways but not in a manner that made me want to stop reading.

Maybe the series is better than the book and offers more insight of the Handmaid’s literal tale, but Atwood’s original work just didn’t hit me the way I thought it would’ve.

My rating: ★★★/5 Stars