It's been three years since the religious wars put the women in habits and dissolved society as we know it. Offred has given up her family and taken on the role of a breeder, passed on to a commander with the sole purpose of having a child in a world which is making that increasingly hard. Things don't go as planned though, and the rumblings of rebellion are stirring beneath the city's orderly facade...
Everyone told me I'd love this book and, to be pretty frank about it, I really did. Margaret Atwood's writing is both accessible and compelling, her handle of characters fully realised and her world building immersive. She also has an insane ability with a slow reveal, and a lot of this novel feels like pulling clothes off someone in ski gear to get to the skin and bones beneath.
Offred is wonderfully flawed, and, as our entry point into the story world, a great point of access. She is not the stirring rebel, but rather a woman forced into obedience but not submission. Her strength comes not from grabbing a knife, but from her tenacity in surviving. It's a characteristic that reminds me a lot of Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones and one that really appeals to me within a narrative. Similarly, the supporting characters are awesomely rounded. Biting and desperate and subservient and mean, the whole story has the feel of characters backed into a corner on a social level and damn, if that isn't a good one.
5 out of 5 maydays.
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