If you liked this try Sherri S. Tepper's "Gibbon's Decline and Fall." Similiar in the "scariness" of a very possible future that we all hope does not happen, but very well could given the current state of affairs in our neighbor to the south. Both books are a rallying cry for women to stand and fight for our rights and even our very lives. Tepper's book is billed as Science Fiction but has very little "alien" content - unless you find misogyny alien.

This book is horrid

What if women were suppressed under a patriarchal totalitarian regime? Margaret Atwood has such an ability to describe something seemingly foreign in such a familiar way. This book wasn't just an interesting thought experiment, as the main character and her history felt so realistic and at times poignant.

Anyone voting for Rick santorum or newt gingrich?

I understand that it was a marketing idea to compare the book with 1984 but i think it was a mistake. The book is a good read but not comparable to Orwell. I am sure that I would have enjoyed it more if I never read that it is compared with 1984. It changed the perspective and most probably my attitude. Still a good book though

With an upcoming visit to our library by Ms Atwood I thought it would be a good idea to comment about my favorite book by her. This book is on my repeat shelf at home: along with I Claudius and a few others, Handmaid's Tale is a book I enjoy reading again and again. The thing that makes it so horrifying is that the world in this novel can actually happen quite easily. Heck, at the time it was written, that world actually existed (and still does) in Iran and Saudi Arabia. Also at the time I read it, the ease with which America became Gilead seemed unrealistic, but today, the mechanics are in place for something like this to happen here. I cannot recommend this book highly enough, not only as a cautionary tale, but a good read and dare I say a page turner?

According to Atwood, it is a tale that is "[a] cognate of A Clockwork Orange, Brave New World, and Nineteen Eighty-Four…" Offred is a Handmaid, one of the women who are responsible for the repopulation of Gilead, and it is her tale that it related. This is a modern classic which mirrors a world in which we already partake, but with interesting twists. Among other things, it brings to surface the struggles of women, class issues, ageism, and racism. A must-read for any woman, but also is a book that must not be overlooked by men. I highly recommend this great book for book clubs, as the above-mentioned topics are cause for great discussion.

This is a great read. One of the few life changing books that makes you re-examine how you view society and the world as a whole

A haunting example of a dystopian novel-- a stark, poetic diction, and a plot often scattered back and forth through time really accentuate the feeling of hollow emptiness throughout it.

This is the scariest book I've read in a long time- not for violence or gore, but for the knowledge that the events described could possibly happen. Atwood is a genius at showing how small events caused the U.S.'s fall into a dystopian 'Republic of Gilead.' You will feel the walls closing in around you as you read the story. It is not a happy book, but it is well-written and important. It is a book for adults, but older teens would be able to read it with some help.