The Handmaid’s Tale

Read Yes
Length 311
Quick Review It’s a remarkable work of dystopian fiction, which has been talked about for decades. It’s a highly influential book in the world of contemporary fiction.

​​I have been hearing about The Handmaid’s Tale for a long time now. It’s been on my to read list for just as long. Amazon has created a TV show of the same name, and I wanted to read the novel before watching the show. So that was my shallow push to finally get around to reading it.

To be honest, it’s a book I read because it is so widely talked about, and not out of pure love for the genre. As a reader, I do not like Atwood’s style throughout. It’s odd and difficult to follow at times. Nor does it follow grammatical rules at all whatsoever. I majored in Literature in college, and have experience with textual analysis. From a scholarly standpoint, the style is incredibly compelling and fully supports the plot. More importantly the style gives credence to Offred, the protagonist, as well as help the reader understand where she starts and her evolution. The style changes throughout the story as Offred progresses taking steps to reclaim her previous self. I won’t say more, so I don’t ruin it for you. The style is intrinsic to the story. I do not think it would be such a compelling work of fiction if the style were more traditional.

It was a difficult book to read, at this point, for me. I live in a country which is experiences a lot of upheaval and frankly illegal/unconstitutional actions. These are the first steps towards societies depicted in dystopian fiction. For me it was difficult to read because there were points where the novel was not depicting a fictional world, but things I see happening right now today.

I was entirely uncomfortable reading The Handmaid’s Tale because of how women are treated. As a self-proclaimed feminist, I was uncomfortable and at times a bit queasy. Although, these are all intended by the author, I’m sure; no one writes dystopian fiction saying: yes this is the perfect world.

I had a hard time getting into the novel because of the style, but once I got used to it, I really enjoyed it. For me, the ending was both perfect yet entirely unsatisfying.

Read it. It’s fabulous and deserving of the hype surrounding it. It ranks high within my list of interesting dystopian novels.

Memorable Quotes
“It’s good to have small goals that can be easily attained.”
“They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time.”