FINALLY finished this book... it only took me 6 months. I had a hard time getting into it, and it really wasn’t until page 250 that I became interested in the story. Up until that point, there is a lot of setup and describing of daily routines but not a lot of information about WHY things are the way they are (even though the characters know why, the reader is left in the dark for a good while).

I always have this problem with Margaret Atwood—I like spec fic, she is an objectively amazing writer, I love the physical way that she plays with words, and yet I never really care about the characters. I always want bad things to happen to them just to kickstart some action into the plot. For me, Atwood is one of those “you have to read this” authors because of cultural and literary significance, not because her books are entertaining or absorbing.