A review by shrayirene
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I remember not liking this book at all when I first read it in high school, which probably had to do with maturity/life experience and that I was reading it for a class.

I definitely got more from the book this time round. Atwood has a very interesting writing style, which I found in turn both annoying and strikingly effective. There were times when jumping around the timeline or dispensing with quotation marks was confusing and it took a moment to realize that the situation had changed. However, the way that she played with words and flipped to their alternate meanings, or used sentence structure to make the words hit differently, was brilliant. I also appreciated that she built a world that was very realistic - there were no invented technologies - which made that world that much more terrifying. 

I'm really looking forward to discussing this with my book club.