I’m literally years late to “The Handmaid’s Tale”, as I’ve avoided this book on principle for a long time. Not because of its content, but more to its hype and the fact that I’m usually not a huge fan of capital “L” literature. But it was selected by the members of the book club I’m proctoring, and after finishing it, I’m of two minds. On one hand I loved it and can totally get behind the hype. On the other, it left me wanting, and […]
What I feel is relief. It wasn’t me.
Welp, I just picked up The Handmaid’s Tale this afternoon, and finished it in one sitting. Not because I couldn’t put it down, but because I absolutely refused to stop, let it percolate, and dare to wonder at what could be coming. Honestly, it’s too believable. I knew that it would be; you can’t avoid talk of the story these days. But it’s strikingly real, and for that reason, downright horrifying. I never caught myself picking apart the believability, or the potential. This is dystopian fiction […]
OK, my second Margaret Atwood book was awesome!
My first exposure to Margaret Atwood was book one in the MaddAddam Trilogy – Oryx and Crake. It was not a rousing success in my eyes. I didn’t quite get it. Aaaanyway, my library’s app had this in ebook form, so it was my second Margaret Atwood book. I loved it. It was my “reading before bed” book, which is hard when it’s a book that I really enjoy. I find myself dozing when I really want to keep reading. So this is another dystopian […]
Unpopular Gals
There should be a separate category called “Margaret Atwood”. So much of her stuff defies categorization. This book is no different, and I really enjoyed it. A book of short stories published in 1992, I fervently wish my freshman in highschool self could have stumbled upon Atwood, instead I was reading Stephen King. No shade on King, but Atwood’s feminist sensibilities could have really helped me figure out some important things so much sooner than I did. Not all of these short stories are winners, […]
End of the World as Told by the Survivors
Unexpectedly, Atwood does not pick up in Year of the Flood where Oryx and Crake ended. Rather, she covers the same time-line as she did in her first novel, only this time she gives us a different viewpoint with which to greet the end of the world. In her first book, we learned that the world’s corporations had hired brilliant men—Crake among them—to bioengineer humanity in their own image—materialist, hedonistic, narcissistic. The profits have never been so good, the disparities between rich and poor never […]
Another Grim Dystopic Future by Atwood
Another of Atwood’s famous dystopic novels, this one the first in a trilogy based on an apocalyptic future after the genetic manipulators and profit-mongers have prompted a sort-of “Noah’s Flood” in the form of an engineered plague to wipe the slate clean. Crake, the genius who created the plague, is gone but his “children” live on as a handful of bioengineered innocents intended to repopulate the world under new—Crake’s– guidelines. Crake’s appointed “shepherd” for this flock is Jimmy, now known as the Snowman, who managed […]