Rating: 
Summary: A Hint of Red
Review: Sometimes, its not what you say, but how you say it. Story lines and plots are constantly recycled, but what sets them apart is how the author takes the idea and journey and makes it his/her own. Thus, Handmaid's Tale should not be taken for granted over Orwell's 1984. Atwood is too proud of a woman to let such raw energy slip past her fingers and she has proven to be quite a versatile writer by producing a surplus of immaculate novels. To me, the protagonist, Offred, is a timeless character - a submissive woman, who is so secretly rebellious, that she doesn't even realize it herself until half-way through the novel. Atwood puts Offred in the beginning years of the Republic of Gilead (formerly the United States), in which religion has taken over as an oppressive totalitarian government. It is an age of decline births, as few women and men are left fertile. Women's stations in the society have been reduced to roles that would make the medieval wives cringe in fear. A commander of a household would possess several women: his wife (the abstinent head of household), his Marthas (sterile women who act as servants and workers) and his Handmaids (the women designated for procreation purposes). Offred, acts as our tour guide through this horrific world, while carrying the burden of her lost liberties and her separation from her husband and daughter. Through grace and tortured language, Atwood gives us a sociology lessen about a world that could possibly become our reality. Readers cannot help but be spellbound by the unique voice of Offred, who must adapt to a world where women are not allowed to read and are no longer allotted any simplistic comforts, such as make-up, photo albums and the freedom to speak and think openly. This book grabs you from the first page and the reader must succumb to the feeling of hopelessness that is embedded in almost every figure of society. I think that's why I kept reading though - there is a chance for change and hope. All of the characters, no matter what their position in the caste system, seem to hate the society. Special moments, such as the commander inviting Offred to play scrabble with him. The gesture seems like a modest act of sympathy from a man who seems to resent his own superiority. Every character is worth exploring until Offred makes her own decisions to involve herself with a man who could either be a member of the rebel resistance movement or the secret police. The Handmaids Tale has the storytelling quality of Anne Rice and the literary qualities and social criticism that one would expect to find from an Adrian Rich collection. I won't lie, this story is an epic journey and has been told before by other writers, set in different worlds with different voices. But I have yet been able to find one that touches every emotion the way that Atwood does. Good stories should always be treasured, but the one's that make you think are true gems.
Rating:
Summary: If the Christian right became the U.S.' Taliban...
Review: I recently picked up this book again, which I hadn't read since the '80's. I expected it not to hold up well, but was surprised instead to find it more timely and moving than ever. When something like the takeover of the Taliban in Afghanistan, or the Nazi takeover of Germany happens, we sit there and wonder how it could happen and how the victims couldn't see it coming. Margaret Atwood's miracle here is that she shows you how it might come and you understand how people got caught up in it. She also persuades you that it could happen here. This is a sad and scary book, but one that is incredibly compelling and believable. The book deals quite a bit with the pressing concerns of religion in America in the '80's, but they are problems that haven't left us today and, in some respects, are more prominent than when Atwood wrote her book -- a declining birth rate, increasing birth defects, a fundamental split in how the left and the right view abortion, clinic bombings, a movement to keep women at home, etc., and by the time the book starts, a far-right splinter group has taken power and stripped almost everyone in society, especially women, of their power and freedom. Atwood looks at how such a society would function and how it would affect its various members, from the wealthy and powerful men who run it, to their barren and houseridden wives, to the servants (men in the military, women in the house) to the handmaids, the fertile women possibily capable in a society not reproducing quickly enough of becoming surrogate mothers for the wealthy and powerful whose wives cannot provide healthy children. This is the ultimate tale of what happens when a society takes away women's rights, especially the right of a woman to control what happens to her body. As the "Aunts" who train the new handmaids to their job would say, there is "freedom to" and "freedom from," and while women are free from rape, they are not free to do anything, include use their real names, their only designation being by to whom they belong at any given moment -- Offred, Ofwarren, etc. The Aunts are meant to conjure up the Jewish capos in the Nazi death camps -- affected people who accept positions of power from their oppressors and use it to help further the oppression. Although Atwood's book is awfully quiet on the subject of race, she does draw from the experiences of American slaves and their status in society, including those who risked their lives to get them to safety. The book is written as the after-the-fact diary of Offred, whose fate is refreshingly ambiguous. I've always disliked the ending, the tacked on "presentation" of a paper on the society in which Offred lived and which examines her diary to determine whether it is real. While it fills in some nice gaps (and lets us know the society it describes ultimately fails), it feels uneccessary and doesn't have the impact of the rest of the book, which is a back and forth between Offred's memories of her husband, child, best friend, and mother and the life she led before, and her current life, which involves a lot of waiting and doing nothing, of watching one's behavior very carefully, and of being afraid to develop friendships and afraid to offend. And of offering your body as a surrogate for a wife who despises you and only wants the child that you hopefully have to offer if you want a guaranteed life away from the relocation camps cleaning up toxic waste and not hanging on the death wall for some transgression against society. A moving account of a repressive Christian society, this book made me grateful for what I have, fears and all.
Rating:
Summary: Enlightened Reading!
Review: In this novel the Handmaids are potentially fertile women assigned to Commanders, who are high level members of a right wing regime whose wives are infertile, you can guess the rest. This is in an era after the U.S. Congress and the President were murdered, and these right-wing bible followers form a society (called the Republic of Gilead) where women have no rights and are valued primarily for their reproductive ability, the Handmaids are'nt even allowed to read. Purges of political enemies are frequent. The primary character is portrayed through a diary she has written, it gives a moving personal account of her life as a Handmaid, very introspective. Overall, this novel seems to be a satiric expose' of where extreme right-wing religious and political thinking can lead us, and these elements do exist today in the United States of America, some actually even in power. A very interesting and well written novel, it kept my interest and should be appealing to most people.
Rating:
Summary: Rare in dystopia novels
Review: Of all of the novels about dystopia that I have read, The Handmaid's Tale is definitely one of the top few. There are very few that are written with a woman character as the first-person narrator, which heightens the sense of social commentary that leaks from each page. For years, women have been forced to identify with male first-person narrators and we've become quite good at it. I know that there are some otherwise intellectual people who have a hard time identifying with a main character unless he/she is of the same gender as the reader, and that may account for some of the negative reviews of this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Another Book to be added to the Idiot's Canon
Review: Well it seems people have taken upon themselves to prove my point from comments like. In reply to our dear Derrek (Derrick) To It is rare a book you have to study becomes something you would read yourself Well the syntax of this sentence is evocative of summer camps circa 1940's Germany. It is rare to study a book? If that is a compendium of the post Kennedy era I am abhorred. Do not even attempt to attempt to think about attempting, We or Darkness at noon or speak of a classic. One point I did not make in my review for Amazon as I did for my column, was that she attempts to make the ridiculous feminist version of a dystopia seem palpable. Which to my Comrades on the Left is execrable? A little Baroque layer here and there would have been congenial. I have to be honest and admit (much to my own dismay) that she is nowhere near the erudite that Ayn Rand is (much as I despise the selfish troglodyte). This book does not have to be studied, that is for anyone who has actually Well-read. This is simple bad fiction at its worst. I will attribute it to the Reagan era, panic of the feminist who lost the Equal rights act mainly due to the efforts of Phyllis Shafly "AKA THE GADFLY". But I know a lot of other 17 year olds who have never gone beyond FHM or MORE magazine who were cultivated by Atwood's sheer brilliance Well I guess the American Educational system is not the only one suffering. It's like the "female" version of 1984 It is Salient that someone has not actually read 1984 they are not cognate, except for the fact that they both take place in totalitarian dystopias. The main character is forced into a job where here only goal in life is to get pregnant and have children You couldn't even name the character (Offred) You'll think about it the next time you go to the ATM or use a credit card or anything That is just an inane comment. I read this in college but could still do a book report on command with great detail about this story. Yes, it's that affective. Terrific premise. Great characterization Elliptical Statements. If you know what a premise is, which I avow you don't you couldn't think it was terrific unless you were Uday or Qusay. In fact, a direct correlation could be drawn from the USA's own constitution to the overthrow that occurs in this novel Well that's about as informed as statements come.
The new government in The Handmaid's Tale has been founded by radicals...
The radicals restructured society in the hopes of a more promising future, one where the burdens of women are uplifted and removed Well this once again is Exemplary of the philistines who plaudit this dross. There is a difference between Radical (which they were not) and Reactionary (which they were)
Well as for the second and 3rd sentence, actually read the novel. These are just a few examples of the mental acumen of the readers of this book that ranks low on any acute pedants scale. But I guess one needs something after Harry Potter and Before Danielle Steele.
Rating:
Summary: Yes im 17 but i am NOT a mindless idiot!
Review: In reply to our dear Derrek, i as many of my other class mates throughly enjoyed the novel, it is rare a book you have to study becomes something you would read yourself, this was a pleasent suprise yet to be told those who found the ending fantastic are mindless idiots is not so pleasent... BUT as for the book, engrosing, compelling, frightening, everything that other review-ees have said before. I read many varied novels although i do not consider myself a book worm i read different genres in order to find what i like. BUt i know a lot of other 17 year olds who have never gone beyond FHM or MORE magazine who were cultivated by Atwoods sheer brilliance. Thankyou Derrek, you made 2 period on a Thursday rather entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: Overrated
Review: Well for one thing the book isn't really as ambiguous as certain lauding critics would have you believe. For those of us who enjoy elegant prose, you will be disappointed. However what we have here is a sanitized female pastiche of 1984. Offred is the narrator telling the story, which isn't at all believable. She is in Bangor Maine at the red center, where they keep fertile women as surrogates for children, the fertility rate is low due to a lethal toxin developed in the 1980's for use against the soviets, but was cancelled. The united states is now the republic of Gilead, the government collapsed after right wing nut jobs arranged a terrorist assault on the capital (hmm sounds familiar?). Well they suspended the constitution first, and then used racist fears to take away civil rights. The Caucasian birthrate is the one affected and this is your typical falwell, Robertson, hagee type white supremacist camp. Its molded after the old testament particularly genesis through Deuteronomy, like Abraham the so called father of Judaism each elite male can have a wive and a handmaid who is to be named after him (offred, ofglen, etc). We see early on subliminal messages about how unlike the left the religious fundamentalist can never adhere to their own puritanical rules. On the walls hang Former abortionists, transsexuals and gays, Quakers, Baptists etc, with signs posted for theier crimes, this is an illusion to the roman crucifixition, she was hinting at how hypocritical it was of them to turn full 180 degrees back. We also see some clever wordplay, when offred our narrator talks about nuns being offered to convert, and some not being able to. "Some HABITS are hard to break," that flew over most plebian readers head. Also aunt Lydia their stringent overseer like the biblical Rachel and Hagar, tells them about how in the olden times you had the freedom to, now they have the freedom from. And if you hear people talk about the ending being complex they obviously are terrible readers or idiots, Serena Joy is also a sort of ploy on Dr Ruth and the right wing females who tell you WHAT YOU SHOULD DO Nicks efficacious position in the eyes and in the mayday underground helped him call out the femaleroad to rescue her. Either way she was pregnant with the guardian's child after engaging in an illicit affair. Now he she dropped a hint that she wanted him to be the father because it was his, she told her that never could be, so instead of seeing the kid raised in the puritanical Gilead where he could do nothing, he had her taken and set free, however he exposed himself and the commander was put on trial. Overall a great book for the high school student or light reader.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing, but thought-provoking a must read for everyone
Review: I read this in college but could still do a book report on command with great detail about this story. Yes, it's that affective. Terrific premise. Great characterization. Ending that's open to interpretation. This story just draws you right in. NO question about it. Well-written and well-thought out. Excellent.
Rating:
Summary: Must Read!!!
Review: It's like the "female" version of 1984. A futuristic society where you're free from being scared of crime, but really you have no freedom other than that. Is it worth it?
The main character is forced into a job where here only goal in life is to get pregnant and have children. Her best friend found "freedom" by acting as a prostitute in an underground brothel. It's an awesome story of the way the world could be, and we should be grateful that we're not in that situation.
Rating:
Summary: Life Changing
Review: Everytime I read this book (and it's been about 12 or 13 times now) I take something new out of it. It will change the lives of any female or male who reads it. You'll think about it the next time you go to the ATM or use a credit card or anything. The book will haunt you in the scariest, best way... Read it. Go. Now. Don't wait.
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