The Handmaid's Tale Book Review

The Handmaid’s tale is a story about women named Offred living in this dystopian world where this world follows an extreme and militarized version of religion based on the Old Testament. There was this big attack that killed major political leaders and a new form of government took over, the Republic of Gilead. In this book, women are very much oppressed. They aren’t allowed to read/write, speak to men, or have jobs. They are forced to cover their faces with “wings” that limit their peripheral vision. They wear long red dressed to hide their body shape. They have to walk around the town in two’s and even still, they can’t really go anywhere. These women are only working as handmaid’s because they can still bear children. Because of pollution, most of the population is infertile. They then give the children to the rich. Her own child was taken away from her and given to another family. Also, the readers never learn her real name. She is reduced to being a womb with the slave name Offred. It is honestly kind of hard to compare her story to women today. In her world, their country was taken over by an uprising. This story is more of a philosophical dystopian novel rather than philosophy that we can compare to the everyday lives of women. I really enjoyed this book as a dystopian story with some elements of feminism, but I would not recommend this for women who want to read a feminist novel.