Audiobook Review: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Author: Margaret Atwood
Narrator: Claire Danes
Release Date: 20th July 2012
Genre: Dystopian, Literary Fiction
Series: 
Edition: Audible Audio
Length: 11 hours
Publisher: Audible a-list Collection
Blurb:
The Republic of Gilead offers Offred only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire—neither Offred’s nor that of the two men on which her future hangs…

REVIEW

★★

I have no clue exactly what it was that put me off so badly while listening to this book. After having spent an entire day listening to this book, I think I totally wasted my time. I could have left it in the middle or maybe before that, but I really wanted to like it, so I did not abandon it. But now, after having finished it, I think I should have simply abandoned it after the first hour or two where it became pretty clear what the lead character had to offer.

Anyway, I’m trying to determine, what made me dislike this book:

✒︎ Was is the fact that the book was full of unnecessary details and ton loads of flowery prose? A lot of unnecessary details and exposition that was really not needed. Maybe if this had been shorter, it would have been beeter?! I wonder…

✒︎ Was it that more often than not it felt like the author tried to elicit sympathy in the reader’s mind by trying to make the reactions unnaturally nonchalant? This trick does work most of the time, but here it felt way too unreal, too forced. I hate when i am made to sympathise to anyone

✒︎ Was it because I found the character of Offred serving only one purpose, trying to make the author look good in terms of ‘see-how-I-created-a-female-lead-that-is-oppressed-and-can’t-do-shit-about-it-see-and-feel-sorry-for-her’? She had no personality… no voice… nothing at all (and not just because of the circumstances she was in, nope, even with all her flashbacks of the past life she still came across very bland) therefore, I was not able to feel anything (literally anything) for her, which is surprising because there is so much hype surrounding this book and I was obviously expecting some great things.

✒︎ Was it because the whole ‘totalitarian-government-taking-away-people’s-precious-freedom’ trope having been used and re-used relentlessly in a LOT of books, especially the classics? We all know what books they are… let’s just say they did it soo much better than why???

✒︎ Or was it because of the narrator? Maybe, maybe not. I am totally unsure of this.

I guess it was a combination of all these (and maybe more.) Anyhoo, I did not like the book and I will not recommend it to anyone as I have nothing good to say about it. Read it at your own risk.