The Handmaid's Tale: A Novel

I wish I had waited to watch the Hulu series until after finishing the book. I usually read the books first before movie/show...but in this case, the copy was on hold at the library with a few others ahead of me. I let my impatience get the best of me; it was a bad decision. The show is (of course) overdramatized in comparison which just made the novel feel watered down.

Margaret Atwood is a master story teller. I have read several of her books and they differ in style and content, but are all compelling. This is the book chosen for May/June by Emma Watson's Our Shared Shelf book club on Goodreads. The range of books that we have read since the inception of this book club is wonderful and I have read every book and enjoyed them all. The Handmaid's Tale is a chilling look at single minded zeal and totalitarianism and crippling discrimination against women. Let us avoid this at all costs.

Overall, it was a bit slow and dry, but definitely scary. It was a good meditation inspiration about not taking rights and privileges for granted and had a few great passages such as this: "It’s an event, a small defiance of rule, so small as to be undetectable, but such moments are the rewards I hold out for myself, like the candy I hoarded, as a child, at the back of a drawer. Such moments are possibilities, tiny peepholes."

Did. Not. Like!

I feel this novel was building up in plot and intensity and then ultimate fell extremely flat. What exactly did I read? It felt like there was nowhere for the plot to go and just kind of ended? I guess that was a cliffhanger, but I don’t feel as though I care to know what happens. The main character was so unlike-able in my opinion, that I don’t care for them or seeing what happens next. The book consisted of some many descriptions of things and not much else. The overall world is so interesting but I don’t think the plot of the protagonist lived up to the intricate and interesting world Atwood created.