Yuffie's Book Reviews

The Handmaid's Tale - by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel following the daily life of Offred. It's a horrific future just a few years after our normal life, where there was some kind of chemical disaster that depleted the population and left many people sterile and fetuses with genetic deformities. The women are now treated like complete objects and property, like cattle, only vessels for having babies and bringing up the population again. Women aren't allowed to smile, talk, have friends, go anywhere without supervision, must be fully covered, including their faces, or think and have opinions. Women are now named by the Commander who runs their household. They must be completely pious and obedient and all stereotypical frivolous woman.

Offred (ie. of fred, the commander) is a handmaiden, which means she's just a vessel to try and get pregnant by the Commander. However, the Commander is likely sterile, but in this society, the woman gets blamed for not being able to conceive. All science has taken leaps backwards, and everything is ruled by extremist outdated Christian faith of the female sin and giving birth is the punishment of women or whatever nonsense.

Yeah, depressing as hell.

To be very honest, I hated this book. It wasn't a badly written book and in fact had a couple paragraphs that I thought were golden. The world building was very detailed—a little too detailed, in fact. But this wasn't a . . . story. It was just an account of the daily life of Offred. There was no goal, no steps taken to achieve that goal, no change or choice or anything.

Offred is THE MOST PASSIVE character I have ever read, and guys, I've read Twilight. Every action she took in this story, every "decision" she made, was her doing something another person told her to do. Even before the big chemical thing, when life was normal, her husband was the one always giving her instructions, telling her what to do. It was absolutely insufferable. She was bitter about her situation in her head, and yet didn't do anything about it. Her friend Moira was the action hero, who took risks, who fought to get out of this nightmarish country. She should've been the protagonist, not freaking boring-pants Offred. And then Moira, who found her version of happiness, was snarked at by Offred's narration, like she was a thing to be pitied, rather than heralded. What the hell did Offred do this entire book? Walk around, do what she's told, eat some food, walk some more, take a bath, get fucked by the Commander, get fucked by Nick the random dude, (both upon orders/suggestions/requests, not really her own novel idea).

Gods, I hated her.

So she was totally a home wrecker both before and after. Her previous husband had been married to another woman when she met him and they started having an affair. Really, book? You think that's going to make me have any sympathy for her? And then she does it again with the Commander, who cheats on his wife for her, and then there's more cheating with Nick. Wtf.

Offred also just kept prattling on and on and on about the past. There was no moving forward. The book was perpetually stuck reminiscing about the past and how wonderful it used to be and how much her life sucks right now. And she has every right to whine about her sucky life, because it really is that shitty, but why the hell would I want to read about a motivationless, defeated woman who just whines about her shitty life and acts like a shitty person for over 300 pages? She's vain, arrogant.

Have I mentioned I hated this character?

I also didn't buy the premise of how the world could switch within A FEW YEARS from our normal to this biblical nightmare. Societies don't change on the flip of a coin, and not this seamlessly. Even with the threat of being hung, things are not going to spiral into this type of society within a few years. It's just not feasible, not that I've seen in history books, anyway. How could our '80s USA culture be so accepting of enslavement of women like this? There was no explanation given in the book for how a chemical disaster and sterilization could lead to this.

And this book. Gahhh. There wasn't a single moment of happiness anywhere in this story. It was doom and gloom and woe is me the entire time. A little bit I can take, but this was just awful. I couldn't stand reading it, and halfway through was the point where I lost patience and my tolerance got used up, at which point I was like "when will this book end..."

It was very detailed and complex and layered in terms of the world building and characterization, but there was no plot, and Offred was an insufferable protagonist. It should've been Moira. She was the one who gave herself scurvy so they'd take her to the doctor and she could escape, but they found out her plot and mutilated her hands and feet. Moira was the one who took one of the supervising "Aunts" and tied her up in the bathroom, stole her clothes, and snuck out. Moira was the one who found a lick of freedom and happiness in this miserable place. Offred just doom and gloomed her way across 350 pages with her self-important pretentious narration.

And oh boy, was this writing pretentious. The flow was just so, so choppy, with no rhythm. It was almost claustrophobic and anxiety-inducing to read long strings of short, choppy fragments, and non-sentences. She just threw grammar out the window, which is fine in certain cases, but not like every freaking line.

I'm starting to see a pattern with these types of books and their extremely pretentious, melodramatic writing. I know that's just the style of the genre, but at least now I can say I've given it a fair shot and realized how miserable it makes me to read this style of writing. It sucks the fun out of reading, it really does.

Another thing that irked me to no end was how everything revolved around sex. The society, the narrator's thoughts—everything was all about fucking others. I mean, I understand that's a big part of people's lives, but it's not the ONLY thing that matters, and yet that was one of the main focal points of this narrative, to the point where I was like: calm the fuck down! how can someone be this horny for this long, to the point where your identity is basically sexsexsex. Didn't you have any other interests? Oh yeah, smoking and getting high. And your daughter and husband, whom you don't fail to mention every 2 pages in fear that we may somehow forget them.

I have a major issue with these slice-of-life stories. They're thought-provoking to a point, but I can't sit through stagnant thought-provocation for 300+ pages. I need a character to move forward and do something with those newly acquired, thought-provoking insights fueling their actions. Thought-provoking content is great, but it should be a base or skeleton, the stage upon which a character stands up and then causes change and movement. To me, thoughts are fuel, not just something to passively gaze at from afar and nod at.

Which, of course, you can argue that slice-of-life stories are fuel for the reader, rather than the character. However, that feels empty to me. When the thoughts and ideas affect the character so intensely that they're motivated to act, that sends a much more powerful message than a character passively describing the setting around them and then doing nothing.

Agh, I really am not the right audience for this book. It's got phenomenal reviews and has won awards, but I just didn't find it good. It had a very compelling premise, and the world building was fantastically layered down to the minute details (with the exception of... well.. HOW The hell this did premise come to exist? Kind of a gaping hole there), but with no plot and insufferable characters, with all the focus on having sex and hating being a sex object and ultimately doing just that and being a sex object for another dude (wow, much strong role model, such feminist...), this book was a chore to get through. It was a good book, for the kind of reader who's into this type of storytelling. I just wasn't that kind of reader. So for the type of book it was, which was more to give a visceral experience of this setting, rather than setting being a backdrop for a character who took action, I'd give it 4/5 stars. Maybe even 4.5/5. But since I'm a reader of the latter tastes—where I want to read about a character who makes decisions and takes actions and tries to change something—I'll have to give a lower personal score.

2.5 stars