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Jan 26, 2012

Mrs. Crane rated it:

I guess Margaret doesn't believe in quotation marks. I don't think I've ever come across a novel yet in which there's no distinction between the narrator and the character, and It took me quite a while to get use to it. I had to go back and re-read sentences again, which doesn't lend itself to a relaxing reading experience. It slowed me down quite a bit.

First 100 pages:
Really annoying. ..why?, well because I felt like a juicy bone was being waved in front of my face. Like when More...

17 comments like (36 people liked it)

Feb 10, 2012

Stephanie rated it:

WARNING: This review is being written after I worked a 13 hour day, with another one on the horizon tomorrow, and a glass of wine and while watching the Rachel Maddow show. Current events have put this book on the forefront of my mind, and damn it I got to get this out.

I have never written a review on The Handmaid's Tale because I love the book, and it is so hard to write about a book you love.

Ehh, what the hell.

OfFred was a normal everyday woman with a More...

31 comments like (47 people liked it)

Dec 04, 2007

Jennifer rated it:

(edited from a paper I wrote in college about the book)

In 1986, when Margaret Atwood published The Handmaid’s Tale, Ronald Regan had declared “Morning in America,” and society was going to renew itself by returning to the old values. The Christian right, in its infancy at the time, was rising in reaction to the Free Love, and the horrors of AIDs. The 1984 election gave us Willie Horton, and a reminder about how violent and evil society had become. Finally, even though Chernobyl happe More...

10 comments like (130 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Anna rated it:

Amazing read. Utterly gripping, compelling, smart. I need to find another one like this.

Atwood's novel presents a dystopic vision of a world in which religious fundamentalists rule and women are confined to female roles, without property or education.

Atwood explores the mechanisms and narratives that must be put into place in order to create such a society. She warns that rights are unstable and should not be taken for granted. Our liberties and freedoms are not inalienab More...

4 comments like (48 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Nathan rated it:

The Handmaid's Tale portrays a terrifying but very real and possible dystopia. At first, it's difficult to tell what exactly is going on in the handmaid's world, although her spare narration is filled with a deep sense of fear and danger. It's challenging but exciting to try to make sense of all the frightening details that she describes, and that's one of the things that made this such a compelling read for me--I was desperate to figure out what was happening as well as how and why things had g More...

7 comments like (48 people liked it)

Jan 30, 2012

Manny rated it:

For the Celebrity Death Match Review Tournament, The Handmaid's Tale (7) versus The Divine Comedy (26)

As she neared the gates, Offred saw an inscription over them which read

ABANDON HOPE, ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE

She passed through, and they closed silently behind her. A moment later, she heard a voice that seemed to come simultaneously from the ground, the sky, and the inside of her head.

"You have forfeited all your rights," said the voice. "You will be my chat More...

1 comment like (14 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Victoria rated it:

Not a very well written book. The writing itself is clumsy. It doesn't feel like you're reading a story; it feels like you're reading a piece of writing. Good writers put their words together for a calculated effect, but Atwood's words aren't just calculated-- they're contrived. In a good piece of writing, you shouldn't see the writer at all. You shouldn't see the structure of their writing. All you should see is the story. If you're seeing the deliberate cadence of a phrase, or the use of repet More...

20 comments like (48 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

Igor rated it:

"Рассказ служанки" (Маргарет Этвуд) это роман/рассказ женщины о близком (2050 годы) нереально страшном времени. Место - территория Сев. Америки, полу-фашистская Республика Гилеад.

Книга небольшая по размеру. Анг. подлинник я просто не прочувствовал, поэтому "Рассказ служанки" я прочел на русском. Стиль книги, худ. приемы и язык, по-моему сильно отличаются от сегодняшней/современной прозы. Короткие абзацы, короткие предложения, даже слова короткие. Они как молоток в More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Dec 10, 2007

Brian rated it:

I have a hard time with art that grapples with totalitarianism, especially in futuristic, Orwellian form. For me, basic human consciousness as it is already exhibits tendencies that are horrific enough in and of themselves to make totalitarian scenario-type books, even if allegorical (i.e. meant to be describing things as they are even though presented as taking place in a future time and place), seem a bit unnecessary. I have no idea if Margaret Atwood is considered a feminist writer, but in More...

1 comment like (27 people liked it)

Sep 15, 2010

Paquita Maria rated it:

THIS BOOKS ABOUT ORGIES AND PEOPLE WHO LIKE ORGIES AND SOME PEOPLE WHO H8 ORGIES.

12 comments like (28 people liked it)

Apr 03, 2011

K.D. rated it:

In Atwood’s book this novel is a speculative fiction. She says that science fiction is something that cannot happen in the current times (knowledge, technology) including those that happen outside Earth. Speculative fiction, on the other hand, has the feasibility of happening and the current and in the near future especially in here on Earth. Had I not read this book, I would not have learned the difference between this two. I originally classified this book as a sci-fi until this morning. I ori More...

14 comments like (19 people liked it)

Jun 25, 2008

Dalton rated it:

Margaret Atwood didn’t make up anything in this book. All of the things that take place in the Republic of Gilead have happened at some point in history (which now includes 1985, the year the book was published). She also arrived at the society depicted in the book by taking certain attitudes, both feminist & conservative, prevalent at the time, and taking them to extreme conclusions. So the place and the culture she depicts are believable. What comes across as far-fetched is the rapidity wi More...

3 comments like (25 people liked it)

Dec 03, 2007

Summer rated it:

I was really struck, upon rereading this, at how much this book could be seen as a commentary on the Harvard/Radcliffe relationship. Of course, there is the obvious parallel to the Iranian revolution of 1979, and the deft discussion of the Second Wave feminist movement, but now that I have spent a bit of time with Radcliffe history, I have to wonder how much of it Atwood, a Radcliffe alumna herself, was influenced by in writing this.

The line that really made me think was the mention More...

5 comments like (18 people liked it)

Mar 19, 2008

Amanda rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

3 comments like (13 people liked it)

Apr 23, 2009

Martine rated it:

The scariest thing about Atwood's dystopian fantasy, first published in 1985, is how prophetic it seems. There were references in the book which sent a chill of recognition down my spine. A right-wing government which blames Islamic fundamentalists for terrorist attacks and begins to suspend certain human rights, claiming it is doing so to protect the people from heathen bastards? I daresay it will sound familiar to any left-wing American who has ever looked with a wary eye at the country's incr More...

14 comments like (31 people liked it)

Jun 17, 2011

Zeek rated it:

Considered a modern Classic, The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood had been on my must read list for some time now. I checked it out once before from the library and never got past the first couple of pages before I had to return it. I probably should have left it at that, because I'd rather be wishing I read it, then feeling the keen sense of disappointment like I do now.

The story is narrated by Offred- not her real name; which I'll get to later- in the first person. Technically I do More...

5 comments like (9 people liked it)

Nov 11, 2010

Tatiana rated it:

Imagine the near future where power is overtaken by the religious right under the guise of protection from Islamic terrorism. Imagine the future where the roles of the women reduced to those assigned to them in Old Testament - they are no longer allowed to read, work, own property, or handle money. Imagine that due to the pollution and man-created viruses, the fertility rates are so low that the few fertile women (the Handmaids) are now a communal property and are moved from house to house to be More...

43 comments like (32 people liked it)

Jun 20, 2008

Mrs. Miska rated it:

Fantastic dystopian masterpiece.

Re-read, June 2008:
I read The Handmaid's Tale for the first time as a wide-eyed, pure and innocent AP Lit student. Although it was not my first foray into the macabre world of dystopian literature, it was one of my first pieces of women's lit (sad, isn't it, that it took me twelve years of education and prolific independent reading to get there?). My teacher for the course was what I imagined an ardent feminist to be: cool, powerful, passionat More...

0 comments like (15 people liked it)

Aug 15, 2008

Stephen rated it:

Here's a story that describes the essentials of what life would be like for women if Islamic fundamentalists took over our civilization. Long robes are mandatory, as are some kind of facial covering. Education is forbidden. Women exist for the pleasure and procreation of the men who control them. In short, pretty much like the situation that prevailed under the Taliban. Mark Steyn makes a pretty convincing case for that being Europe's inevitable future, but Margaret Atwood places the action here More...

8 comments like (20 people liked it)

Jan 22, 2011

Stacey rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

3 comments like (9 people liked it)

Dec 02, 2007

علی rated it:

What I feel to say about Handmaid’s Tale, won’t be a review at all. Handmaid’s tale is compelling. I’m amazed to read the novel by a Canadian writer, written just a few years after the Revolution in Iran, but brimful of details of what was going on there behind the walls, yet unknown to local people! Is it a co-incident? I doubt it. It’s just because, I believe, Margaret Atwood is a great writer with a spread knowledge about human being’s attitudes.
Whether we like it or not, there exist a More...

3 comments like (8 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Sammy rated it:

What an amazing read. This was a book I literally could not put down so I read it in a night. Offred's journey should become everyone's journey. What do I mean by that? I mean pick up this book! Go buy it, check it out from the library, borrow it from someone who owns it. This book definitely makes you think and want to strive for a change of sorts.

Reading the summary you may automatically think this is a mild, entertaining form of feminist propaganda, but it's not. While their is a More...

0 comments like (12 people liked it)

Jun 18, 2011

Ben rated it:

Margaret Atwood looms large in that particularly Canadian part of my literary subconscious, the part that natters at me to call stuff "CanLit" and berates me for having never read anything by Michael Ondaatje. Atwood is Kind Of A Big Deal, but so far I have managed to avoid reading any of her novels and have read, as far as I can recall, one of her short stories. Already, though, I have a bone to pick with Atwood. She has this weird bias against science fiction and insists that she doe More...

5 comments like (5 people liked it)

Aug 30, 2011

Amber ~Geektastic~ rated it:

In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood has created a claustrophobic vision of the near-future that is as lyrical as it is chilling. Truly great speculative or dystopian fiction is based in reality; the horrors of the future must be believable to have power, and this is powerful stuff.

The Republic of Gilead, the name given to the society that was once America, is a place ruled by a shadowy government of religious fanatics who have imposed their values by terror and lies. Women no l More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Aug 24, 2011

Isamlq rated it:

I was actually quite hesitant to take it on. Yes, sadly, I only became aware of this because of allusions made to it in a couple of Wither reviews. So I was really hesitant to read on two counts. First, would it be accessible? Would I ‘get’ it? Second, would it live up to snuff especially since Wither was just not so good. My worries were unfounded because I truly did get caught up in her story, her world. From the start, it was so easy to imagine (making it all the more scary.) As to allusions More...

7 comments like (3 people liked it)

May 21, 2011

Cory rated it:

I've read a lot of science fiction, not hardcore science fiction, but I think I could have a decent conversation with someone on the topic. Margaret Atwood claims that The Handmaid's Tale is speculative fiction. Speculative fiction is science fiction that could actually happen today. That's where I have to disagree. As with the The Hunger Games, I had difficulty suspending my belief for the entirety of the novel.

Written in 1985, The Handmaid's Tale was published right after the woma More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Oct 29, 2011

prettybooks rated it:

I found The Handmaid’s Tale to be one of the most compelling books I’ve ever read and definitely one of my favourites of this year.

In a world that has reverted back to a day where totalitarianism is commonplace and accepted, women known as “handmaids” are given (literally) to elite couples that are unable to have children, with the sole purpose of reproducing for them. If they do not fulfil this purpose, they are sent to the “colonies” to either work in agriculture or clear up toxic More...

4 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 25, 2008

Trevor rated it:

I can be a bit of a dag at times – before I started this I heard somewhere that it was her first novel – and so I figured I would start my review by saying something like, “it was okay, but I’m sure she will get better as she goes on.” I’ve just checked and it was not her first novel, or anything like her first. All the same, I stand by my conviction that she will get better as a novelist – even if it turns out that some of those better novels will now have been written before this one.
More...

2 comments like (10 people liked it)

Jul 30, 2008

Dini rated it:

The Handmaid's Tale is a frightening look into a future where the US, now called the Republic of Gilead, is run by religious fundamentalists. In this grim world, women have no right to property, are forbidden to read and write, and are assigned to specific functions. One of them is that of the Handmaid, who is assigned to a family as a means of reproduction.

The story is told through the point of view of Offred, a Handmaid assigned to a prominent family in Gilead. She can still rememb More...

9 comments like (8 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Mark rated it:

This is one of the few works of science fiction that my mother likes, and my mother is a classical literature sort of person, so I feel I can enthusiastically recommend this book to people on all sides of the fantasy continuum.

Set in America after an ultra-conservative revolution, The Handmaid's Tale chronicles a few years in the life of a woman reduced to the status of a handmaid, little more than a walking womb in a world where fertility is rare. She has been brainwashed and beaten More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)