06/20/2025
It’s clear why this book is a classic, although I can see why some people struggle to get into it. Given it’s a telling of the story from the perspective of Offred, you do get some day in the life for awhile. But I think that is okay because this is a story of a frightening subtext through the eyes of someone lying to themselves often to get through the horror that Gilead is. I can also see why the live action adaptation probably hit differently than the book because Offred checks out in times where she is super stressed about things going on around her.
I often think of hearing people say, this book is not a guide, and I totally get where they are coming from. It’s sad that a world like this is plausible even today. That said, it’s mostly about a world where nobody is happy, man or woman, and that part spoke deeply to me. They often say fascism is dangerous for the elite as well and this book holds no punches in that regard.
If I were to be critical of one thing, it would be the extremely long descriptions of things with triple or more metaphors. A few really worked, but after awhile, at least in the first half of the book, they started to become too numerous for me.
2025-26
