The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood Review

Hi ForeverBookers, 

I’ve just finished “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood and I highly enjoyed it. It feels kind of wrong to say that I loved it because of the story matter, but it was really good. 

4 Stars!

I read “The Handmaid’s Tale” for a few readathons. These were:

The Owls Magical Readathon, hosted by BookRoast on Youtube. For this readathon, it goes throughout April and everyone chooses a Hogwarts career. I chose to be a writer/journalist, which that means that I need to complete certain Owls. “The Handmaid’s Tale” covers History Of Magic, which the prompt was to read a book published at least 10 years ago. “The Handmaid’s Tale” was published in 1985, which fits this prompt perfectly.

Popsugar Reading Challenge, 2019 - A book that has at least 1 million ratings on Goodreads - “The Handmaid’s Tale” has 1,060,659 ratings on Goodreads!

Reading Rivalry - A book with an anniversary edition. I actually read from what I think is an anniversary edition of the book, but it definitely has lots of anniversary editions as it’s a modern classic.  

Fiction Feud Society - This month, FFS is playing a bookish version of Candyland, which is a game that I’ve never heard of before. I read “The Handmaid’s Tale” for Lord Liquorice: Mystery/Thriller because I class it as a societal thriller. 

Litwits - Book from my TBR Pile - I’ve had “The Handmaid’s Tale” for a while, sitting on my bookshelf. If I’m to be honest, I was afraid I wouldn’t like it. I’m so glad that that wasn’t the case.

The Literary Love Affair prompts are quite far out for April so I don’t expect I’ll be able to do this readathon, this month. 

Sailor-Moon-A-Thon - Pluto - Dystopian - I love Sailor Moon so I think I'll be completing these prompts throughout the rest of the year. 

“The Handmaid’s Tale” is written in first person, which I really enjoyed. It was good to see how the effects of the novel directly affected the characters. We see through the eyes of a young woman called June. June is a handmaid, as the title suggests. She’s 33 years old. Her purpose is to provide a child for the Commander she lives with, and his wife. The Wives, as all Commander’s wives are known throughout the novel, can’t have their own children. The morals in “The Handmaid’s Tale” are certainly skewed towards whatever the Commanders want. They have sex with the handmaids as if it’s a job, rather than an act of love, which is what a child should be. 

June has to become pregnant by a certain date or else she’ll be replaced by a different handmaid. It becomes clear throughout the novel that it might not be her that’s at fault, for not getting pregnant. Why? Does she become pregnant one way or another? You’ll need to read to find out. 

The TV show, “The Handmaid’s Tale” is based on this book. I thought the adaptation was very much on point. It told the events of the book well, although the adaptation goes further than the book, which I wasn’t expecting. There’s another book called “The Testaments,” which is set to be released in the autumn/fall of 2019. I’m REALLY looking forward to reading this. It’s a sequel to “The Handmaid’s Tale,” that will concentrate on three different women 15 years after June’s story.

Spoilers Below...

“I must forget about my secret name and all ways back. My name is Offred now, and here is where I live.”

This is a point in the middle of the novel. Here, June is trying to forget her past life and name. She’s been renamed Offred, instead of June. She was a mother to a daughter before she became a handmaid, who she needs to try her hardest to forget. In the television show, her daughter is called Hannah. However, in the novel we never learn her name. June must forget her life before Gilead, the phenomena that’s made the women become handmaids, and her husband, Luke and their daughter. Can she? You’ll have to read to find out.

“Women can’t hold property anymore. It’s a new law.”

This is incredibly sexist, in fact ALL of “The Handmaid’s Tale” is sexist. The men are very much in control meaning it’s set in a very Patriarchal society. The handmaids are the bottom of the ladder and the Commanders and their wives are at the top. The Commander’s Wives aren’t able to have children themselves for some reason. This reason wasn’t ever expanded on. We just know that the Handmaids are like their walking uteruses. I wish we had known why the Wives couldn’t have babies because it would have given the novel a little more substance, I think.

The Wives that we meet in the novel are very pretentious. Serena Joy, the Wife whom Offred lives with is very uncomfortable in her presence.

“Your time’s running out,” she says, not a question, a matter of fact. 

       “Yes,” I say, neutrally.”

Serena Joy isn’t happy about how long it’s taking for Offred to become pregnant, so much so that she suggests another, illegal way to create a baby. I don’t want to spoil this further, but it’s good. It does happen in the TV show but I believe it happens slightly differently. 

“Possibly she’ll put a hand on my shoulder to steady herself, as if I’m a piece of furniture. She’s done it before.” 

In the novel, Serena Joy comes across to me at least, as elderly, more so than in the TV show. This might be why she can’t have children any longer in the novel. In the TV show we can see that she’s quite young. When Offred tells Serena Joy that she’s “withered,” in the novel, this again, gave me the feeling that Serena is meant to be older than she comes across in the TV show. 

The Commander that June is placed with, along with Serena Joy is quite cold towards her at first. “This is serious business. The commander, too is doing his duty.” The Commander it appears doesn’t want a baby himself, but it’s what is done in this dystopian version of the USA. He feels he must do it. It literally is just business for him. His coldness changes slightly as the novel progresses, and he gets to know June as June, instead of Offred. I believe that Serena and the Commander have issues in their marriage, as well. 

“It isn’t love,” is what June thinks when she’s first placed with the Commander and Serena Joy. This is when the commander is having sex with her. However, the Commander and June become almost friends towards the end of the novel, when the Commander starts playing Scrabble with June and invites her out to a club, where she’s not meant to be one night. Although these moments happen in the TV show, I don’t believe the characters are any more friendly on it than they are to begin with. It’s the novel that suggests they are. These moments are clandestine as well, so that Serena doesn’t get jealous, as the novel and TV show both suggest she’s prone to do.  

Of course, as in most novels there is a hero. Nick, in this case is the hero. In the TV show, he comes across as slightly nicer than in the book but I still liked reading his parts. He plays a significant role in the novel and the TV show, that I don’t want to spoil but can June and Nick find a way through together? I wish “The Testaments” was going to be set only a few months after “The Handmaid’s Tale,” as I would like to see the direct effects of the end of the novel on the characters, as season 3 will show us in the TV show. 

The Handmaids are friendly towards each other. They’re in the same boat so they might as well get along. Each handmaid is expected to exercise as well as shop for her household. They’re segregated into pairs to do this. Ofglen is Offred’s walking partner. Ofglen tells June of a secret society for handmaids to express their experiences that isn’t yet detected by anybody in charge of Gilead. We also meet Janine, who has a baby for her Commander but isn’t allowed to bond with her at all, or even feed her. This, again is played out in the TV show. 

Lastly, Aunt Lydia is a character present throughout the novel. She very much believes that “Blessed be the fruit,” which is the statement that’s heard again and again in the TV show. “Blessed be the fruit” is what the handmaids say to each other as a greeting in both the novel and TV show. It’s meant as a statement of luck, I believe, that the handmaid will get pregnant. Aunt Lydia is strict, more so in the TV show, I’d say, but she doesn’t like it when a girl goes against her wishes or tries to not be a handmaid, as June does a couple of times throughout “The Handmaid’s Tale” in both the novel and the TV show. 

What did I like about “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

I liked the tone of the novel. It wasn’t a happy book as most YA that I read is. “The Handmaid’s Tale” is clearly an adult book from the themes that arise to the action played out but it didn’t try to be something that it wasn’t, as I feel certainly some novels try to do these days. 

I liked how there was still a little romance. I don’t want to spoil it at all but it’s clear that two characters have feelings towards each other. 

I liked how there were clearly some friendships between the handmaids. It wasn’t just June against Gilead but a lot of handmaids. It was like a secret revolution.   

I liked how the evil characters, were never labelled evil. Some of their morals were to be questioned definitely but it was as if it was up to us, the reader to label them evil. The author never did it for us. 

What didn’t I like about “The Handmaid’s Tale.” 

I didn’t like how long some of the scenes were. I get why this was written the way that it was, given that it’s a modern classic but I would have liked the parts with June and The commander slimmed down, a little, for example. 

Overall then, I really enjoyed reading “The Handmaid’s Tale.” It clearly is a novel of it’s time, even though it’s a dystopian novel, but it’s surprising how many of the themes are still present in today’s world. The novel and TV show have lots of similarities. I watched the TV show before I read the book. I kind of wish I had read the book, then watched the TV show but it didn’t make me enjoy either, any less. I thought that it would be a boring classic but it really wasn’t. It kept me on the edge of my seat! That’s why I’m giving “The Handmaid’s Tale” 4 Stars! It wasn’t perfect but it was a good story. 

Stand by for my next review, coming soon...