Penny Alderman

I'm an avid reader, will give any genre a go, and mostly the books I've read are either ok, or brilliant, but this is one of the few that is terrible. In order for a story to be good, you must be able to relate to it, and I cannot relate to any of the characters, or hold any sympathy for them. The story has no humour nor excitement, nothing to get you interested, or make you really think. This book reminds me of the Chrysalids in a way, but the characters in John Wyndham's book have personalities, you like them or loathe them, you sympathise and fear for them, and they've got guts. There's no characters in The Handmaid's tale which elicits feelings for them, they are all one dimensional, and the philosophy so basic, there's no grey areas, there's no seeing both sides at the same time. No such complexity exits in this book. There are so many better books about a dystopian future.