Dev Jannerson > Recent Status Updates

This is supposedly a novelization of the movie, but Smith has expounded on and changed many parts. I don't mind the former, but what's bumming me out is that all the dialogue is different. No "Get back, spithead!", no "I hate your whimper," no "All right -- alone, then!" Not even "Trial by stone!" The result is no less magical, but it is drier.

"'But most of us do not believe in Socialism, you see,' I protested. 'You believe in it altogether too much,' she replied flatly. 'You seem to think that every step toward decent economic health and development has been appropriated by Socialism, and that you cannot do one thing toward economic freedom and progress unless you become Socialists!'" WELL, SHIT.

So far, this is alarmingly Westboro-sympathetic. It's marketed like a searing expose, but the worst she has said so far is that their beliefs "didn't always make sense." Drain describes terrorizing a random lesbian for years, and the only part she's upset about is the day counterprotestors got violent. I get that she's at risk of being sued--suing is, like, the WBC's whole thing--but what is this book's goal?

All I can say is, if The Giver was Lowry Does 1984, this is Lowry Does The Handmaid's Tale.