A Handmaid's Tale: Great Until the End

Spoiler Alert will be on throughout this post, just so you know.  Although everyone has already read The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood because it came out in 1998 so it hardly matters.

In any case, I was very excited when I read the description for THT. I thought, Great! More teen dystopian lit for 2012! Then I found out it was written in 1998. And then I realized that the story was great until the end which is a complete crap ending.

All in all, I thought it was much like 1984. Which is a book that I adore and respect, obviously as I love dystopian stories. However, this had the same plot as 1984. The initial setup to show how the world works nowadays, the dissenters dreaming of ways to rebel, and the ways that they do rebel. I'm sorry, but after the buildup of this book, after all the ways women are ignored, shunned, and forced into horrible actions, the ending was too abrupt.

It left the reader wondering if she was saved by an underground railroad-esque operation or if she was killed by the government. All in all, I was thoroughly unimpressed. I put in all that time reading up to the annoying, unresolved ending!

Thanks, Margaret Atwood. Thanks a lot.