I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilized. I wish it showed me in a better light...

The Handmaid's Tale hit hard because as someone that prides themselves on absorbing books, articles, and all forms of media about the world, other cultures, societal concerns and trends. This book was like a rock crushing down on my soul. It made me want to weep, scream, and rage all at the same time. The fact that women's independence was destroyed and restricted so easily, that they were forced to be vessels for the nation. That a group of elderly white people controlled the bodies of the young women of the nation felt so relevant to societal concerns today.

In America recently we have seen so many restrictive laws about women's bodies and abortion. Black women sentenced for failing to protect their unborn children from gunshots, heartbeat bills preventing women from aborting their unborn children, restrictions on access to contraception for the women that have the least resources (usually minority ethnic groups). However, this is only a small part of the global story. Many women across the globe lack access to safe contraception, they use sponges, coat hangers, plastic bags, washing with disinfectant after sex, coca-cola and aspirin. These are some of the ACTUAL methods women use today. We are in a very real crisis that dates back to colonialism, where the patriarchal white empire weaponised and controlled women's bodies. British empire used women's bodies as a way to control the nation. It makes me so angry and sad to see that in 2020 when I am lucky enough to have the ability to control my body and reproduction that many women do not have the safe medical access. This is something I spent a lot of time studying in my Master's degree and I think why this book was so emotional for me.

I avoid looking down at my body, not so much because it's shameful or immodest but because I don't want to see I. I don't want to look at something that determines me so completely.

I found this book uncomfortable reading at the easiest and unbearable reading at the worst. This is not a book I can say I liked, but one that I certainly think is worthwhile reading.

The book feels as though it was very ahead of time for the period it was written in. Very critical and astute of the way in which society functions and how easy it can be for relationships of power to change. However, I hated how easily everybody seemed to give up in this book. I hated how defeatist this book seemed. I want people to fight for what they believe in and want. I wanted a clear rebellious sector throughout the whole book.

My other major issue with this book is that it was just clearly white people. This book was set in America, written by an American in the 1980s, where are the Asians, the African-Americans, the Latinos, the Native Americans, the immigrants? There's not any clear indication of any other cultural group in this book. There's a brief reference to Jewish people being taken out on boats and planes to Israel. However, this world cannot surely be all white? I understand this is a religiously driven book, and therefore Muslim communities, Native American groups, Buddhists, Hindus etc would clearly not align with these views. I just want answers about how a world that is so rich would end up with this singular ideology.

The literary style, prose and plot were all well-paced and quite interesting as we jumped between timelines and times of day. I liked the pacing and how we saw the world through Offred's eyes. I think this only made me more emotional and stressed about the whole read.

Overall, I would recommend everyone to read this book, but I would also encourage you to read more widely about women's health and reproduction. I would encourage you to think on the themes that are at the core of Margaret Atwood's writing and how society functions. This for me is more than just a book, it has a lot of real concerns about the morals of society.

You young people don't appreciate things, she'd say. You don't know what we had to go through, just to get you where you are. Look at him, slicing the carrots. Don't you know how many women's lives, how many women's bodies, the tanks had to roll over just to get that far?