Challenge: Sci Fi
I heard a lot of acclaim about this book but dystopian universes aren’t my thing and while I didn’t
dislike The Blind Assassin by the same author, it was heavy reading I thought
and I just didn’t want to have that experience again so I successfully avoided this book for ages. But, I needed a science fiction book for the
challenge so I thought I might as well read this.
The Handmaid’s Tale is told by Offred, a “handmaid” in the
former United States whose job it is to produce a child with a Commander to
whom she is assigned. Because misogynistic, religious zealots have taken over, women no longer have rights, case in point, Offred is now “Of Fred”. There is a strong
decline in birth rates so Offred is valued only for her ability to have a
child. Offred tells us about life in this society and with her Commander. She also remembers the world
before when she was married and had a child and she tells us how this society
came to be through flashbacks.
This book was so much better than I thought it would be and
so now I understand all the hype. This
new society that Offred lives in was fascinating. I was actually going to skip
the Historical Notes at the end but then I realized they were part of the story
and gave more of the background to the events that Offred described so that was kind of cool. There was a lot of ambiguity in the ending
and unanswered questions but I don’t think that took away from the story. While I really liked it, this was not an uplifting novel so just beware of that.
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