Reviews - Crónica de uma Serva

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41.5k reviews for:

Crónica de uma Serva

Margaret Atwood

4.18 AVERAGE

tristeroism's review against another edition

2.0

i'm mad at everyone who convinced me this was essential reading

webertheteacher's review against another edition

4.25

dark reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

graceishere's review against another edition

5.0

dark tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

ratdisco's review against another edition

4.5

dark tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

pselden's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Gods, I sincerely doubt Margaret Atwood meant this dystopian novel to be an instruction manual for a remade white Christian nationalist United States of America. Horrific, even as a second read through. It's like rubbernecking a fatal car crash, knowing you'll see white sheets as you drive by, expecting the casualties. Still doesn't soften the blow. Doesn't make this "life imitating art" any easier to tolerate. Doesn't qualm the rage I feel on the daily or the sharp bite of bile that's lived at the back of my throat since November, 2016. Gilead, the totalitarian theocracy I so richly (disturbingly) imagined, is now the Not-So-United States, my home. Scary and also embarrassing.

What can we do to "Make Atwood fiction again"? Do we slap a slogan on a ball cap or take to the streets? What will our struggles look like? Will it be outright war or a slow and bitter descent into fascism with months that turn into years? Is this the end of our season as a unified country? Or is this the sharp and oppressive fall, every day temperatures plummeting and so many of us dreading what's to come: the eventual die off of peace and liberty during this bleakest of winters. Moving from small, everyday acts of repression to outright tyrannical rule, I want to ask: What is our timeline, exactly? How is the death of democracy by a thousand political concessions measured? In minutes? Hours? Months? Years? Administrations? Is it even possible to find our way back?

The women (and men) of The Handmaid's Tale must have also grappled with many of these questions. And while I don't have the answers, I hope we evolve to be the June Osbournes we need today and will need in the future. "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum."