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reviewed Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale, #1)

Margaret Atwood: Handmaid's Tale (Paperback, 1998, Anchor Books) 4 stars

It is the world of the near future, and Offred is a Handmaid in the …

A must read in the current political climate, but not in love with the writing style

4 stars

A must read in the current political climate. I like the Hulu TV show better than the book though... the book is good, but I just don't care for: 1) the confusing, random flashbacks in time that don't seem to be triggered by anything in the book's present time; 2) some of the deep, detailed dives into things such as the appearance of a flower. While Hemingway had an excessively sparse writing style for me, Atwood had a bit of an excessively flowery, purple-prose style at times for my taste; 3) the sensation that from the start of the book to the end of the book, nothing progressed. There didn't seem to be a plot, rather just a description of how awful life in Gilead was. Perhaps you can piece together a plot from some of the pre-Gilead flashbacks, but I prefer more linear storylines.