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A review by elijah__
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Wonderful book, frighteningly real. One little detail (which may be me overanalyzing) that I thought was really interesting was the main character's name -- Offred is, of course, Of-Fred, but can also be split into Off-Red, and she is dehumanized and reduced to the red garments she wears by Gilead; the book humanizes her, takes off the red. This is, terrifyingly, the most realistic and tangible dystopia I've ever read, and I love how Offred's flashbacks paint her life before and the very realistic descent into dystopia.
There are a few very small things that made me go 4/5 instead of 5/5; the biggest (while still minor) is the lack of distinction of the dialogue in memory or flashback scenes, of which there are many. I get what she was going for -- it feels more stream-of-consciousness, like Offred is idly thinking back on these events -- but if Atwood didn't want to use quotation marks, italics also would've gone a long way to clarify which bits were spoken by characters. Also, while her one-changed-word perversion of a Marx quote ("from each according to *her* ability, to each according to *his* needs") is very effective and completely alters the meaning with a single swapped pronoun, a right-wing American theocratic dystopia inserting Marx into its amended bible just seems like a stretch, considering the right's hatred of communism. Again, those are fairly small nitpicks; everyone should read this book. It's truly horrifying that it's as real now as it was when it was published (perhaps even moreso.)
There are a few very small things that made me go 4/5 instead of 5/5; the biggest (while still minor) is the lack of distinction of the dialogue in memory or flashback scenes, of which there are many. I get what she was going for -- it feels more stream-of-consciousness, like Offred is idly thinking back on these events -- but if Atwood didn't want to use quotation marks, italics also would've gone a long way to clarify which bits were spoken by characters. Also, while her one-changed-word perversion of a Marx quote ("from each according to *her* ability, to each according to *his* needs") is very effective and completely alters the meaning with a single swapped pronoun, a right-wing American theocratic dystopia inserting Marx into its amended bible just seems like a stretch, considering the right's hatred of communism. Again, those are fairly small nitpicks; everyone should read this book. It's truly horrifying that it's as real now as it was when it was published (perhaps even moreso.)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death and Misogyny