The Handmaid's Tale

I had high hopes for this book. I really did. I kept reading and waiting and yet....I just kept feeling like I was rereading 1984. Same basic structure: a major country has been overthrown by a controlling, murderous, and mysterious group. All who could not escape live in a world without freedom or privacy. The main character is Offred, who narrates the story of her life as a handmaid. At some point, most of the world has become sterile and so procreating is controlled by the government. Handmaids are young, hopefully fertile, women who are owned by higher ranking officers to become pregnant, give birth, and then be tossed aside so the wives can raise the babies as their own. The story is creepy, but the plot felt unoriginal, and the pacing was for snails. I know I'm unpopular with this opinion and Margaret Atwood is a highly respected author, but I don't feel like I can recommend it to anyone who has limited reading time when there are so many other great books to read.

The Lovely Bones

The Lovely Bones was my first read from Alice Sebold and I was not disappointed. A copy sat on my bookshelf for about a year when I saw a preview for a movie based on the book. Of course, it was time to read it if I was ever going to get to it. (Because, as any reader knows, the book is always better than the movie.) The Lovely Bones is told from the perspective of Susie Salmon after she has been raped and killed by a neighbor. I think I was sold on the book when she names her assailant within the first chapter. I was expecting the identity of her killer to be revealed throughout the book in some sort of predictable manner. Susie was killed in 1973 when she was 14 and she narrates the next decade of her family's life as she observes from "her heaven" but is not able to interact with them. Ms. Sebold writes from Susie's perspective with a genuine voice for a young teenager gaining clarity on what has happened to her. Although sad at times (obviously) the story is also funny and thought provoking.