The Handmaid's Tale

My first Atwood read was actually The Year of the Flood, and honestly it didn't grab me the way I thought it would based on reviews. I picked this book up because I'm trying to read some “classics” that I missed, and it blew me away. Such concise, terse language which nonetheless blooms into something amazing. It's not a happy read–way too close to home in that “our society is a thin veneer” sort of way, but that's the strength of the book as well, of course: With a few years, things could change significantly for the worse for all of us, and for women in particular. (When I was growing up, the idea that women wouldn't have easy, cheap access to abortion by now seemed silly, for instance.) This is definitely a book I will read again and again.

SPOILER BELOW
One odd thing that hit me as I finished the book up last night is the shift in tone at the very end, as it is revealed that the Mayday folks are there to save our protagonist–the whole book seems to be building to her suicide, almost from the first page, and then BAM! she's part of the resistance. It seems so unlikely, in a way–but also, it speaks to the fact that many of us don't see the resistance going on all around us, aren't familiar with the ways in which people resist every damn day. I suppose the ending is ambiguous on purpose...