From the Bookshelf of Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge…

The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)

Margaret Atwood

Start date: November 19, 2015

Finish date: November 20, 2015

Discussion: 2015 Challenge Prompts

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2015 Challenge Prompts

Prompt 25: A book you were supposed to read in school but didn't
By Ann · 67 posts · 992 views

last updated Jan 17, 2023 03:51PM

Prompt 39: A book with magic
By Ann · 48 posts · 446 views

last updated Jan 02, 2019 05:46AM

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What Members Thought

Oct 16, 2009 Graceann rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classics, banned-by-idiots

In this classic novel, Margaret Atwood offers us a story of a future that is not entirely out of the realm of imagination. As is stated in the final chapter, nothing mentioned in the novel is truly fictional - each of the events happened at one time or another in human history: subjugation of women and forced breeding are hardly new concepts. What Margaret Atwood does here is create a "civilization," Gilead, wherein all the small elements that were used at various times come together in a horrif ...more

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Oct 09, 2016 Megan rated it really liked it

Shelves: feminist-themes, book-riot-2016-read-harder, funny-humor-satire, classics, fantasy, sci-fi, frequentlybanned-challenged, library-loans

I selected this for the 2016 BookRiot Read Harder Challenge category "Read a dystopian or post-apocalyptic novel." Once I got into the rhythm of the story, I really enjoyed this brilliant satirical cautionary tale, and really liked the dreamlike feel to the narration. As I read the novel, it felt like I was listening to the titular handmaid relaying her story, as she recalled the past. Set in the fictitious Republic of Gilead (in what we later learn is somewhere in what would be Maine), the stor ...more

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Jan 21, 2012 Beth rated it really liked it

I've wanted to read this book for more than a decade, so it's a double pleasure having enjoyed it so much and checking it off my to read list. What struck me most was not so much the social commentary, although that may have been Atwood's main intent, but the emotional life of the narrator. The way the novel was structured, I felt drawn in to what at first felt like a emotionally distant character. But by the end I was feeling her reactions viscerally.
I really loved the way Atwood crafted this ...more

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