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I think we can all agree that Margaret Atwood is a genius, whether her choppy writing and somewhat vague narrative fit our personal preference or not. As this was pitched to me as a "feminist 1984", I never doubted that I would enjoy it very much.

The Handmaid's Tale features a totalitarian and theocratic state in which almost everything has been taken away from women; books, money, property, love, safety, self-worth... Offred, our main character, is a handmaid. Handmaids are fertile women that are sent from household to household, with only one task: to provide for children. In Atwood's dystopian world, pollution and chemical spills have led to a radical decline in fertility rates �� causing society to resort to governing women’s bodies and mindsets in hope of redemption.

"We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories."

Offred was no remarkable protagonist, but her surroundings sure left an imprint on me. She lives in a world where heavy indoctrination leads to acceptance of inequality. It was uncomfortable to get through passages in which she deals with the shame that comes with breaking the rules the state has created for her. Rules that surpass basic human rights.

This book is a conversation starter. It raises topics that were important at the time it was published, that would have been important a hundred years ago, that are still important today. Drawing lines between The Handmaid's Tale and real life made my skin crawl. Atwood really does know her stuff �� I believe nobody could ever read this book without recognizing the parallels. Take one look at the stories floating around on the Internet, or scroll through the news, and you'll be sure to find a freakish amount of similarities.

"When we think of the past it's the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that."

The book often slips into flashbacks of Offred's life before everything was taken away from her. This happens without warning, and if you read too fast, it's almost unnoticeable. Some find this aggravating, but I liked the way it kept happening in the same way Offred's happiness was snatched away: with the snap of fingers, in the blink of an eye.

This jolty, convulsive writing style fit well within the storyline. The words themselves, however, never offer anything new; parts of the text would have connected with me more had they been written in a slightly different way than the rest of it. To quote Shakespeare, it was all just "words, words, words".

All in all, The Handmaid's Tale is powerful and thought-provoking, and definitely something everyone should read. Luckily, pretty much everyone has. Cautionary tales are quite possibly the most important tales there are.

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Additional Notes:
- Do I read The Testaments or do I not? I think maybe not
- I'm pretty sure Atwood only makes use of apostrophes in spoken sentences when Offred starts to trust the speaker. Did I get that right?