Rating: ****
Tags: Science Fiction, Classics, Adult, Feminism, Fantasy, Lang:en
Summary
(Book Jacket Status: Jacketed) A gripping vision of our society radically overturned by a
theocratic revolution, Margaret Atwood’s
The Handmaid's Tale has become one of the most
powerful and most widely read novels of our time. Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, serving in
the household of the enigmatic Commander and his bitter wife.
She may go out once a day to markets whose signs are now
pictures because women are not allowed to read. She must pray
that the Commander makes her pregnant, for in a time of
declining birthrates her value lies in her fertility, and
failure means exile to the dangerously polluted Colonies.
Offred can remember a time when she lived with her husband
and daughter and had a job, before she lost even her own
name. Now she navigates the intimate secrets of those who
control her every move, risking her life in breaking the
rules. Like Aldous Huxley’s
Brave New World and George Orwell’s
Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Handmaid's Tale has
endured not only as a literary landmark but as a warning of a
possible future that is still chillingly relevant. **