Although it's heavily implied that the people are supervised 24/7 and every building is 'baby-proofed' making suicide impossible, most likely from previous incidents. So far from what I read is that the book switches from the main character's everyday life as a handmaid in the home of old, infertile Serena Joy to memories of her past when she was in an affair with Luke--a married man, having a baby, getting separated in her escape from the enforced government, having her memories of them get erased and being put into a 'handmaid academy'.
I have read dystopian books before, coincidentally I just finished one called Proxy by Alex London, but they weren't like this one. This book is really intense, the world is depressing and restricting, and the people are like animals in a zoo. I really don't know what to think, there is so much happening and I can't wrap my head around all the many characters we are introduced to. All I know is that I would never want for this to actually happen in real life. I mean, how does someone just come up with a story like this? It's really creative, that's for sure. I'm not exactly sure what similarities there are but I feel like the misogyny, the women's roles, and the extreme (mis)use of religious text relates to the older eras of history. I'll be commenting on Melia's and Fernando's blog posts.
4 Comments
Melia D
6/8/2018 09:19:42 am
The way you describe their world now as 'depressing and restricting' seems absolutely correct. I'm hardly surprised though, most dystopias tend to be restricting and heavy on emotion suppressing... This novel does seem to bring restricting and emotion to a whole new level though. I'm curious to how this story will end.
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Elizabeth Tran
6/14/2018 08:20:12 pm
The story ends on such a weird note! Throughout the rest of the story, it's still as depressing and as restricting, but a lot still happens that really freaks me out. I don't really know how to feel about the narrator/main character's choices, they were risky and also extremely explicit. I found it kind of interesting and also kind of shocking to read it.
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Fernando Ramirez
6/11/2018 06:23:08 pm
The book is indeed quite disorienting to read as it references a past that might seem more familiar to us but to them is distant and somehow unrecognizable. I am interested to see how this story turns out and why there needs to be a presence of undercover spies.
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Elizabeth Tran
6/14/2018 08:23:13 pm
The story itself felt really intense and the ending was pretty disorienting. I'm still not sure about the entire situation with the spies but they did seem like an efficient way to instill fear into the society. It also thickens the plot when one of the side characters is revealed to be a spy themselves!
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