Simona B's Reviews > The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
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it was ok
bookshelves: in-english, 1950-1999

EDIT 02/06/2016: Lowering the rating to two. I finished it more than a week ago and now I realized I haven't thought of it once. It really left me nothing.

"Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some."

I used to think of my reading taste as predictable. Well, at least a very specific part of my reading taste: namely, there are very few things in the world that I love more than I love dyostopias in the style of 1984 and, above any other, Brave New World (seriously, you need to read that book). This is why I was convinced I was bound to like The Handmaid's Tale; and yet, right before I started it, I was caught by a hunch that my certainties were not certain at all.

I don't know if it's self-conditioning or whatever, but my gut feelings lately are unerring.

•Have you ever heard of Coleridge and the suspension of disbelief?
"...a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith."
In the majority of cases, we don't even realize we're granting the author and the story our suspension of disbelief. We just believe, because we are prepared to, because we know that if we don't, then reading is no use, especially if what we are dealing with is a fantasy or sci-fi book. Lo and behold, this book made me struggle to grant it my suspension of disbelief. I still have not decided if it was due to the writing, or the story in itself, or something else yet, but that is what happened, and it totally ruined it for me.

•In my defense, the lack of explanations, or better, the fact that they are given only when we are well into the story, practically towards the end, did not help. Most of the time, I just felt like I was groping around in the dark, and honestly, it was annoying, annoying, annoying. Besides, we are supposed to believe that this full-scale change that swept across the society happened in approximately eight or ten years at most, (we don't know the chronological details) and I found I just couldn't believe it. It's too radical a transformation, and according to the book the mentality it brought about is already well-implanted into the citizens -not everyone, naturally, but generally it is. It's par for the course for a dictatorship to establish itself in a matter of years, but it requires nonetheless the long-standing presence of a certain set of ideas that justifies and forms the basis of the building of an ideology. What we see in The Handmaid's Tale is the cause, the ultimate effect, and none of the passages in between. I need the in-between. I need the whole picture.

•This lack of "background", if you can call it so, made it impossible for me to lose myself int he story. The narrative voice, the protagonist's, is ineffective, bland, not nearly as trenchant as such a strong story requires. She should be able to heighten our disgust for the situation out of sympathy towards her and her circumstances, but to me, and you are allowed to call me heartless, nothing of this happened. I was horrified by what she and the whole female population have to suffer, but it was only an objective aversion due to an objective state of affairs, and not even partly to the empathy I should have felt for the character. I read stories to connect with the people in them; otherwise, I would read nonfiction.

•The plot is uneventful, almost literally. Usually this is not something I consider a priori as a flaw, but in this case it felt like one.

➽ On balance, I did not enjoy it. I acknowledge its value, but it was quite an effort for me to get through it.
Now that I think of it, probably it's kind of a 2.5 instead of a full 3.
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Reading Progress

December 8, 2015 – Shelved as: to-read
December 8, 2015 – Shelved
May 22, 2016 – Shelved as: in-english
May 25, 2016 – Started Reading
May 25, 2016 – Finished Reading
January 10, 2018 – Shelved as: 1950-1999

Comments Showing 1-23 of 23 (23 new)

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Annamaria Ahahha terribile quando ti regalano un libro e poi tu finisci con l'odiarlo! :'D fortuna che i miei solevano regalarmi Moccia quando ero una piccola stupida! >.<


Simona B Emer (ALittleHaze) wrote: "I can thoroughly understand your disillusionment with this book Simo. I know I preferred it to you as I quite liked the writing and I can straight up say that I have read very few dystopias (that a..."

Thank you Emer <3 I know, the premise is more than valid! But I couldn't bring myself to "enjoy" it, I wasn't even as horrified as I should have been. What was lacking was a connection with the character! I'm afraid it ruined everything :/ I agree that it is perfect for philosophical/social speculation though. Dystopias like the ones I mentioned made me think more, partly because I was more invested in the story probably, but this book here is absolutely unique for the themes it brings up.
Aw, you're so lucky for your mom! Mine doesn't read, but at least she's always wiling to hear me out when I want to rant/rave about some book :) Exchanging opinions with her is a completely different thing though, I'm so jealous! :D


Books are TARDIS Wow, that note on the suspension of disbelief, pure brilliance. I admire how deeply you think the story through. Love the review.


message 4: by Liz (new) - rated it 2 stars

Liz YES! Fantastic review! What you refer to as disbelief in your review I simply coined plausibility but we basically have the same issues with this book! I am glad I am not the only one ;)
You are completely right in terms of the suspension of disbelief, of course :)


Natasha Thank you for this review. I had the same issues with this book.


Natasha Thank you for this review. I had the same issues with this book.


Jennifer E.  Adams I totally agree. You put into words what I was feeling and couldn't put into words yet.


Ilana Well put! My sentiments exactly!


message 9: by Giovani (last edited Apr 08, 2017 11:52AM) (new) - rated it 1 star

Giovani I didn't have a problem suspending disbelief, but other than that your review is exactly what I thought about this book.

Quoting your bottom line (I don't even want to put in the effort of using by own words): "On balance, I did not enjoy it. I acknowledge its value, but it was quite an effort for me to get through it."


message 10: by Adi (new) - rated it 4 stars

Adi It's not overnight. Things happen slowly, underground, unseen, and then it only seems sudden when they come to fruition. https://theestablishment.co/i-grew-up...


Datatater Great review. You nailed it. I thought there was something wrong with me for not loving this book. But I just didn’t. It wasn’t awful, nor was it awesome. It just fell flat. Meh. Thanks for saying that for me SO MUCH BETTER than I ever could.


message 12: by Lori (new) - added it

Lori Perfect review. No suspension of disbelief, check; lack of explanation, check; uneventful plot, check!


Karen Downes I am re-reading this (after first reading it sometime in the early '90's).
Don't rely on explanations and plots (especially when suspending disbelief) - rely on what is happening. How possible it is to get there and how it begins. Read it in the context of, in 2018, Roe v Wade is being challenged. Again. Blessed Be.


message 14: by Catka (new) - rated it 1 star

Catka thank you Simona, this is exactly my feeling about the book. I could not buy the story and I could not relate to the main character.
Actually, Margaret wrote it herself: ""She tried to explain it to me afterwards, to tell me that the things in it had really happened, but to me it was only a story. I thought someone had made it up. .... If it's only a story, it becomes less frightening.”


Madeleine I also felt the same way as you described in this review. Though I did eventually care a bit about Offred towards the end, I never formed a deep connection with her and that ruined the story. I also did not feel that I could believe it vehemently but I agree that it has very interesting arguments and depictions in it that are worthy to discuss about. XD


message 16: by TS (new) - rated it 2 stars

TS Pretty much sums up my feelings as well.


message 17: by Michelle (new)

Michelle DeFields-Gambrel There is nothing that happens in the book that hasn’t actually happened in history somewhere in the world. Suspension of disbelief? Not needs - it is all to real!


Simona B Thank you all for your comments, people!

Michelle wrote: "There is nothing that happens in the book that hasn’t actually happened in history somewhere in the world. Suspension of disbelief? Not needs - it is all to real!"

Hi Michelle! Thank you for your perspective. I read this book five years ago and since then I've begun studying SF 'professionally,' so to speak, so I may want to change my rating and my opinions when I reread this book, especially because I remember next to nothing about it. But that aside, I always find it interesting when people use criteria or realism, feasibility and verisimilitude to judge fiction. We all do that, and to a degree I too did it in this review, but what I focus on here is the depiction of these processes whose ultimate end the novel narrates, and not whether they could happen in reality in the same exact way. When I say that I needed the in-between, that was because I felt that the book was lacking in the depiction/exploration of these processes, and thus I couldn't suspend disbelief--as in, I couldn't form a full-fledged picture of the fictional world (not necessarily dependent on the real one) that the text, which is its own entity, was constructing.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain this better 👋


message 19: by RICHARD (last edited May 03, 2021 09:29AM) (new)

RICHARD D Thank you for writing this review. I have not read the book, but I have very recently started watching the TV show and after watching the full 1st season and a handful of episodes from the 2nd, I too cannot get past the "suspension of disbelief" required to accept what happening. I like fanatasy and sci-fi, but the TV show is very hard to accept that world can exist.

I know Mrs. Atwood wrote the book and it was published in 1985. I know she visited various locations throughout Europe (and elsewhere) that had former totalitarian or strong authoritairian regimes as "research" for her novel. But I want to quickly nitpick her "rule" - that all the events in the book had to have happened in real life somewhere at some point in the past.

For me, I can't beleive that ALL the men (seemingly) in this world suddenly turned into obedient, brutal soldiers. Yes there are undoubedtly men who care only for self gain and power; such men usually end up working in a police force somewhere. Mrs. Atwood is a woman and this would never occur to her but every man in their lifetime will eventually pay for sex with a hooker, or go to a strip club, or watch sadistic porn...whatever nasty ideas about power and sex you can imagine. But we all eventually ask ourselves...what if she were my mother, or my sister or daughter or cousin or a close female friend from work/school? What if I knew her? Hell what if it was my wife! What then? Would I stay and go along?

We (the reader) are supposed to just accept that no man would take issue with the women in their lives suddenly turned into sex slaves? Or slaves in general (in the case of Marthas.) It happened to African men AND women hundreds of ago, American and European slave trade.

Further, I don't know if it was ever explained in the books -- reading Simona's review probably not -- but the total control over the sex lives of those obidient soldier men is flat out laughable. Hitler tried this policy over his own people (men and women) and it failed spectularly. And Hitler is pretty much THE extreme real-world example for much of the brutality that happens.

And I too ..." need the in-between. I need the whole picture." It's hard to take this story seriously and continue on if I can't suspend my disbelief.


message 20: by Mia (new) - added it

Mia @Richard if you had fully watched the show, you’d know that not everyone is obedient and there is an underground group working to dismantle the government. Also up until relatively recently in human history, wives were viewed as the property of their husbands, and in many places still are. It’s actually pretty easy to slide back in society, look at current US politics.


Jeanette Simona, you are a critical thinker. Congratulations.


Jeanette It is rarer every decade. Kudos.


message 23: by Ashley (new)

Ashley @Richard Just because you can’t suspend your disbelief doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen; you can believe that every man will do those “nasty ideas” you mention, yet it’s somehow find it hard to believe that in the novel that those same “all men” would stay silent about the whole situation? Just because of the possibility that it could happen to somebody close to you might make one think otherwise? How about the fact that lots of women are forced into those situations that you mention and exploited without their consent and a lot of men do acknowledge that; however they choose to ignore that fact despite the person being put into these sorts of situations is also somebody else’s mother, sister, daughter, cousin, or wife and it could also potentially be theirs. (But I literally don’t understand why it has to be the fear of it happening to someone close to them that makes it so they suddenly not want to go along.) You say that “every man” consumes that type of media, so I’m assuming you include yourself too (even if it’s a massive generalization, which is ironic because your whole argument is essentially “not all men,”) so if men are so fearful of somebody close to them being turned into slaves, why don’t they protest these industries that literally are already trafficking women to be used as slaves? How come in some countries, women are already treated as third-class citizens and these men close to them don’t say anything? And some are even willing to sell their child or spouse into slavery? How come a lot of conservative men never spoke out against abortion even when their partners needed one that would literally save their lives? Why are they going along with it all? It’s a privilege to be raised an in environment where you can imagine men arguing for the rights of women, because some of us have never experienced that, from even our own parents, friends, teachers, classmates, etc


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