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I wanted time to digest this book in order to do justice in my review, but still I'm not sure I can adequately explain how powerful this book is. First off, Atwood is a beautiful writer. Her style is clean, intelligent, articulate, and she takes the time to develop the roots of her society so when it grows around you like ivy, it grabs you in its clutches--which is exactly how Atwood's imaginary government came to be. Take away the right to vote, the right to money, the right to read, and slowly you have a government where women are debased as nothing more than their husband's property. Throw in rampant infertility from modern ecological influences and it's disturbing how accurate this dystopia could be. After over twenty years and countless changes, her world is as much a fear in modern times, if not more so with all we're learning about the Middle East, than it was then.

Stripped of her right to be a wife and mother because she's not enough of a religious zealot, the protagonist becomes a handmaid for a commander, as in a vessel for his wife to conceive a baby when she cannot. Her only value in society is if she produces a child and the commander is not young, fertile male. The fear, the frustration, the fruitlessness of it all are powerful. What struck me most was how little the characters knew whom to trust and what exactly was going on. I personally enjoyed the lack of understanding and the open ending, no duex en machina to save the day, no sudden revelation of exactly how the government was working, nothing but the reality of her jailed life. We the reader feel as frustrated as she behind her winged hat with nothing more than clips of what is going on and what has happened to the people in her life. There is much to speculate and much to fear when a society demands all and gives nothing back.