The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood; 311 pages
I've been meaning to read this for years and years, but kept putting it off. I'm sorry I did now, since I've apparently been missing out on Atwood all these years. This book was amazingly good, though not necessarily "enjoyable." For anyone not familiar with the story, it's set in a world where the US has been overthrown by religious extremists, and women have been made the property of men. The narrator, Offred, is a Handmaid, one of a caste who's sole purpose is to reproduce, then yield their children to other women to raise. So while the book was very uncomfortable or downright depressing to read, I was unable to put it down (it helped that this was a much faster read than most of the "literary" fiction I've picked up recently). I'm glad my mom decided to read this at the same time as me, as it gave me someone to discuss it with. And believe me, there was a lot of discussion going on. I'll definitely try to work some more Atwood into my reading this year.
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