The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Title: The Handmaid's Tale


Author: Margaret Atwood (Canadian, 1939- )
Originally published: 1985
Page count: 317


Dates read: 1/14/2020-1/23/2020
2020 book goal progress: 2 out of 20
Reading category: TBR Shelf


Read my other book reviews for my 2020 goal HERE.


Description on back of book:
In Margaret Atwood's dystopian future, environmental disasters and declining birth rates have led to a Second American Civil War. The result is the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that enforces rigid social roles and enslaves the few remaining fertile women. Offred is one of these, a Handmaid bound to produce children for one of Gilead's Commanders. Deprived of her husband, her child, her freedom, and even her own name, Offred clings to her memories and her will to survive.

First sentence:
"We slept in what had once been the gymnasium."

Favorite quote:
"We lived as usual. Everyone does, most of the time. Whatever is going on is as usual. We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn't the same ignorance, you have to work at it."

CAWPILE Rating: Overall - 6.9 - ⭐⭐⭐
Characters      - 7
Atmosphere   - 8
Writing Style - 5
Plot                - 7
Intrigue          - 8
Logic             - 7
Enjoyment     - 6
What is a CAWPILE Rating?

Review:

I really wanted to like this book, but all I was left with was the feeling of 'meh.' It's in the first person, written as a sort of diary. At first, that was neat - I liked the really zoomed-in perspective of the events... but that wore off quickly. I wanted to know what others were thinking - the men and those in various roles. I wanted to know more about how the society worked, but since the character didn't really know, we (the readers) didn't either. It was a jumbled story going back and forth between the present time with her active as a Handmaid, to the past when she was being re-educated to be a Handmaid, and to the further past when she had a husband and child of her own. I would have preferred it to just all be chronological order.

I was interested at the beginning of the story, through most of the middle I was bored, the ending ramped up a bit again but it was the epilogue that ultimately saved the book for me. I think the concept was a good one, I just didn't get anywhere near the depth I was looking for. Overall, I'm glad I read the book - I've been wanting to for a while - but I probably won't read the sequel as I had initially planned to this year.

Now I'm off to read another book... but since a review should be more about the author of the book than about the writer of the blog, I will let Margaret Atwood have the last words:

"There is something subversive about this garden, a sense of buried things bursting upwards, wordlessly, into the light, as if to point, to say: Whatever is silenced will clamor to be heard, though silently."