Thanks for the nightmares, Margaret Atwood! 

I hated this book, for how chilling it was, how easily I believed every word of it. 

I’ve been processing the United States November 2024 election while reading this book, and I can’t say that I made a good decision in picking this one up. I’m so uncomfortable how close our lives are getting to this dark problematic world. 

The worst part is the punctuation of this story with Offred’s constant refrain “I don’t want to be telling this story.” She’s telling a story to herself each night. Telling a story to her daughter. Telling a story to Luke, if she ever meets him again, “…in the future or in heaven or in prison or underground, some other place.” Telling the story to another handmaid, to another woman, to me. How many times did I read the dread coming straight from her having to tell this story, and feel dread myself, because I didn’t want to be reading it. And yet I couldn’t put it down. It was the least I could do. I will hear your story, Offred.