After spending the past few days in Margaret Atwood's Republic of Gilead. I stopped bitching about pretty much everything. More than anything, after reading The Handmaid's Tale, I have come to appreciate everything after experiencing what it would be like to have absolutely nothing.

The Handmaid's Tale describes a world in which women are not allowed to read, nor write. Are not allowed to have a job accept for the task assigned to them. In the case of the handmaid's ... you are pretty much a baby machine. Your one and only task is to birth a child for one of the many infertile wives of high ranked generals and other than that you literally have no life!! Or better yet, what is left of "your life" is not something anyone would like to wake up to.

We experience the Republic of Gilead through the eyes of Offred, a handmaid. We learn how this totalitarian Christian theocracy came to be and how individuals are segregated by categories and dressed according to their social functions. The new regime is strict and the new rules are harsh especially for the women. They are not allowed to do anything that would grant them any power independent of the system. They can't vote, posses money or own anything. Not abiding by these rules will result in some sort of physical punishment or it can even get you killed. The hardest thing to experience is how all the new social rules and the segregation effect the women mentally.

The most fascinating thing about this book is that many of the horrific fictional events in it, are based on historical facts.... and since Margaret Atwood's writing includes, among other things, lots of sensory detail... visiting the Republic of Gilead turned out to be a very draining experience. Nevertheless extraordinary writing deserves to be revisted from time to time ... and this book
I will definitely re-read.