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A review by lancakes
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
5.0
4.5 rounded up to 5 stars. I don't think I've ever read speculative fiction before, or if I have there hasn't been much. I really enjoy the genre, or at least how Atwood writes it, the horror feels so real. I know that a lot of people have been reading it since 45 was elected, because it feels very relevant with what feels like a backsliding of women's rights or a backlash against feminist progress or a recent crackdown of oppression. But what actually felt most relevant and related to my life, specifically, is the ending of the book, it's like an epilogue of sorts, an academic lecture included to demonstrate the non-fiction analogues to Atwood's speculative work. The academic attitudes are a particular phenomenon in which I am complicit and which I agitate against within my own personal philosophies, academic production and broader efforts of advocacy. I doubt this is incidental, either, I'm sure Atwood has had experience with, or at least the opportunity to observe, the problems within academia and its cultures.
Unrelated, I want to again express my disappointment and, to be real, anger, that I didn't get to read this in school. Not that kids necessarily engage with assigned material, I certainly fudged a few book reports along the way, but I think it would have been nice to: read a book where violence against women was written by a woman and served a greater purpose than to shock or to motivate a male character, read a book written by a woman (full stop, just in general, there was almost no assigned books by female authors for me between grade 4 and 12), read a book narrated by a woman/with a main female character (again, written by a woman). I don't understand why this book isn't part of the highschool curriculum:
1) Atwood is a Canadian author. You'd think the government would be hype about that. I had to read enough bleak short stories about Canadian prairie winters in high school to make me think the government has some sort of Canadian content standards for curriculum, Atwood would make a good choice. Also, she's white, which also seemed to be a requirement in our curriculum.
2) Atwood's a lady person. It's the 21st century, I'm hoping there's some kind of gender parity/representation initiative within curriculums.
3) This book in particular covers themes in books that were part of my curriculum. I could've read this in place of 1984 or Animal Farm, it contains both a dystopic authoritarian future and a regime change and allegorically presented historical events. I also could've read this instead of Lord of the Flies, it too probes human nature, the corruption of power, and the human capacity for cruelty. I do not think this book is too mature for teenagers, they know what's up and I don't think it's particularly more jarringly violent or suggestive than Of Mice and Men, 1984, Hamlet, Macbeth, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, Poe's The Tell Tale Heart, or any God awful bleak Canadian frontier short story that invariably involves the slaughter of animals.
end rant.
Unrelated, I want to again express my disappointment and, to be real, anger, that I didn't get to read this in school. Not that kids necessarily engage with assigned material, I certainly fudged a few book reports along the way, but I think it would have been nice to: read a book where violence against women was written by a woman and served a greater purpose than to shock or to motivate a male character, read a book written by a woman (full stop, just in general, there was almost no assigned books by female authors for me between grade 4 and 12), read a book narrated by a woman/with a main female character (again, written by a woman). I don't understand why this book isn't part of the highschool curriculum:
1) Atwood is a Canadian author. You'd think the government would be hype about that. I had to read enough bleak short stories about Canadian prairie winters in high school to make me think the government has some sort of Canadian content standards for curriculum, Atwood would make a good choice. Also, she's white, which also seemed to be a requirement in our curriculum.
2) Atwood's a lady person. It's the 21st century, I'm hoping there's some kind of gender parity/representation initiative within curriculums.
3) This book in particular covers themes in books that were part of my curriculum. I could've read this in place of 1984 or Animal Farm, it contains both a dystopic authoritarian future and a regime change and allegorically presented historical events. I also could've read this instead of Lord of the Flies, it too probes human nature, the corruption of power, and the human capacity for cruelty. I do not think this book is too mature for teenagers, they know what's up and I don't think it's particularly more jarringly violent or suggestive than Of Mice and Men, 1984, Hamlet, Macbeth, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, Poe's The Tell Tale Heart, or any God awful bleak Canadian frontier short story that invariably involves the slaughter of animals.
end rant.