A review by mawar12
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

it's a really sad book especially when the MC is talking about her ex husband Luke (I say ex because we don't know he's dead or alive) and her daughter who was taken away and probably didn't remember her. It does seem interesting because unlike 1984, the story take place when the revolution was quiet new and all of the characters except Luke the really young ones remember life before the revolution. The transformation between a normal country to a tolitarian state seem really scary when the women was suddenly forced out of workplace.
However, I do think the ending is a bit not satisfying as we don't know what happened to Offred and that it was left ambiguous. At least we know Nick is actually a member of the resistance group called Mayfly  and the van he led Offred to might plan to rescue Offred. The ending where the lecturer of the university talk about Offred is a bit grim as it seemed he didn't treat the story seriously.
However, I feel it's really unfair people tht are liberals always use this book to scare people away from pro life stances when in fact the two instances are totally different. Offred didn't have a choice but to have loveless sex to produce babies while people that chose abortion mostly do it because they chose to have sex. They can't just have sex and then freely want to abort them just to avoid consequences. It's really far  fetched how these people even think it's remotely the same situation. Like no, people choosing to have sex with someone while still wanting to abort your baby is NOT the same situation as Offred in this novel whatsoever. I'd make excuse if it's like cases like r*pe or for health reasons but to cry victim because you don't  use protection while having sex and then wanting to kill the babies however you want is wrong. Stop saying it's the same as the handmaid's tale, it's an insult to people tht actually have to through such regimes.

Overall I like how the author tells her story , it's just the commander scenes where he suddenly likes her and take her out makes no sense to me but I guess it's probably needed to show how the world was like.
I find Moira such an intriguing character but I'm abit sad she didn't get to actually escape and ended up being a prostitute. It just shows how grim ths dystopian reality is and in a way, more realistic.