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

Margaret Atwood

Start date: March 1, 2017

Finish date: March 25, 2017

Discussion: Book Discussions

Discussion leader: RJ - Slayer of Trolls

Why we're reading this: Group Classic Novel discussion March 2017
#22 on NPR's Top 100 SF/F novels of all time (2011 poll) http://…more
[close] Group Classic Novel discussion March 2017
#22 on NPR's Top 100 SF/F novels of all time (2011 poll) http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/1390858...
#38 on Locus Magazines Best SciFi novels of the 20th century http://www.locusmag.com/2012/AllCentu...

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What Members Thought

Jan 04, 2014 Barbara rated it really liked it

This book was considered an "instant classic" upon publication. There are a million synopses available so mine isn't needed, but real quick - the story is about a Christian fundamentalist takeover of the United States. Women in this society have absolutely no freedom, are forbidden to read, and are assigned roles like housekeeper, cook, indoctrinator, etc. The "handmaids" are forced to bear children for the Commanders who are in charge of the government. A book with a political point of view for ...more

18 likes · Like · see review

Apr 20, 2012 Andrea rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-sorted, list-1001-books, fiction-scifi, literature-canadian, 2017-canada150

So I finally read one of the most iconic pieces of Canadian Literature. And this one being my second title from Atwood, I have to say the lady is very reliable for churning out disturbing cautionary tales of bleak future. Her stories don't particularly blow me away, but they still manage to provoke deep thoughts and glue me to their pages for hours. I highlighted the crap out of my copy, and I'm sure I'll be thinking about some of the passages for a long while. ...more

5 likes · Like · see review

Dec 14, 2012 Diana Marques | Papéis e Letras rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: kobo, own, sci-fi, 2013, favourites, dystopia, 1001-to-read-before-you-die

Last year I read Oryx and Crake and absolutely loved it. So this year I wanted to try another book by Margaret Atwood and I chose this one.
The Handmaid's Tale presents us a distopic and teocratic society in which the reproduction of the human race is vital and women are viewed only as bodies capable of creating life. Well, at least some women, the Handmaids. They dress all in red and their fuction is to give birth to babies, since women (and men) have become sterile and a fertile woman is always ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Jun 18, 2011 Kim rated it really liked it

Strange, perversely interesting, and very affecting (perhaps particularly so if you're a woman). Undeniably, a 1984 backdrop. I think what might've been more disturbing than the constantly present oppression of women by a society (which, by the way, is something incomprehensibly large and more ominous than "men" as a group) was the way in which women (within the same class, and of different classes) were pitted against each other. In Atwood's society, to be a woman, even one of high status, is t ...more

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Jun 04, 2014 Katie Tillwick rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 100-books-to-read-in-your-lifetime

A gripping tale of life in a theocracy. A distopian US has been taken over by a Christian fundamentalist theocracy, which severely represses women. A harrowing tale.

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