March 2013 Round Up

It's been a month for runners.

I finally finished my double sided Tall Boy runner and I retro-fitted my Dresser runner to be double sided.

I managed 2 out of the 3 blocks for the month of March.

New to Me - Raising Seeds

Books

You can read my review of this book at Goodreads.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Without my online Wombat Stew Book Club I would NEVER have bought a copy of this book. The blurb on the back would have warned me away for sure. I must admit that I really struggled to read it from the first realisation that missing speech marks, first person narrative and little back grounding of the situation was part of the style.

What was it that irked me so much about it as I persevered into the middle of the book? Possibly the fact that Offred seemed to accept her plight without challenging the system she was oppressed by. I like my heroines to have a strong will and a plan. Offred had none. She was at the mercy of her circumstance. I wanted to reach into the pages and give her a good slap.

I have to say that I could not predict where the narrative was going even after some back grounding was revealed in later chapters. That was a good thing. I did not predict the ending either. And the surprise historical note at the end saved the book for me.

Overall I am glad that I read this book. Totally out of my comfort zone but very thought provoking. And for a book penned back in the 80s there we some surprising parallels to real historical events since.

View all my reviews