The Handmaid's Tale tells the story of Offred – not her real name, but the patronymic she has been given by the new regime in an oppressive parallel America of the future – and her role as a Handmaid. The Handmaids are forced to provide children by proxy for infertile women of a higher social status. Offred remembers her life before the inception of Gilead, when she had a husband, a daughter and a life.
A recommendation (from several people)
I throughly enjoyed this book and felt the more I read the more it picked up pace and sucked me in, whilst also leaving you guessing the whole way through the book. It lends itself to letting you lead yourself to your own conclusions and your own interpretations of events. It throws you into the world of a handmaid and your never quite sure what century, place, time frame it is meant to be set in but gives you hints and clues throughout the story. We follow one particular handmaid, who was thrown into a strange world and how she copes and how she lives. I think it was very poignant making very clear arguments about current topics close to peoples hearts and gives a different perspective on a number of issues, as well as being very well written in a literature sense. It sometimes throws you through different time frames, ie flashbacks and side stories without always warning that this is a flashback. It seems that the author expects you to be intelligent and that you can come to your own conclusions about events without it being spelt out to you, which I find clever and well thought out. I can see why they are studying it at the college I work at and can see why it was recommended to me.
Not a book I would usually pick up without prompting, but glad I was told I must read this book. I could not put it down and think it should be up there as one of the top books to read. I found it compelling, insightful and interesting.
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