I find Atwood's books to be very unsatisfying, but this one is getting five stars because it is so damn powerful. The world seems fantastical and impossible when looked at as a whole, but when one looks at individual aspects of this dystopia, it all seems entirely too probable, so probable that it was frightening at times. This book deals with so many of the issues facing women today from anti-abortion to the availability of birth control to victim blaming to slut shaming. But at the heart of the book is the argument of whether our freedoms should be sacrificed for our safety.

Now for the criticism. Atwood is very good at weaving these worlds that I want to immerse myself in, that I want to know more about. And she dangles that knowledge in front of the reader for the whole book, a carrot in front of a cart-horse. But the twist is you never get the carrot, which is so unsatisfying. Atwood focuses neither on the character getting a good ending nor on the world being well fleshed-out and explained, so you're left with disappointment. Oryx and Crake was much the same for me, but I related with so many of the tropes in this book that I couldn't give it any less than five stars.