While the concept of the dystopian society of Gilead in The Handmaid's Tale is interesting enough, I don't think the book delivers on its potential. What should have been an epic and thought-provoking book is severely held back by its rambling over-the-top writing style, and lack of necessary details on how Gilead came to be.
The author likes to use lots of commas, so that, in case you were reading this, you would feel, instead of natural sentence flow, that it's, really, very choppy. See what I did there? It takes me as a reader out of the story because I'm so busy trying to parse the sentences. Quotation marks are also a thing of rarity, showing up only part of the time. Lots of minute details are included on completely unimportant things (like eggs and chairs), which caused my eyes to glaze over from reading it all.
In addition, I feel like the author got lazy and glossed over the crucial details of how Gilead became the way it is. If this is to serve as a warning and as social commentary, we the readers need these details. Otherwise, it just feels like the author waved her hands and voila, everything became Gilead.
Still, I'm giving it 3 stars because it's worth at least a read for some interesting ideas.
Readaroo Rating: 3 stars
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