I spent the majority of the book hugely enjoying it, I devoured it in a couple of days. But at the end I feel... unsatisfied. I'll weigh up what I most enjoyed and what I least enjoyed:

One of my favourite things about this book was the imagery. Atwood is absolutely expert with this and uses similes, metaphors, personification in the most creative but effective ways- not trying too hard, but hitting home. Despite the fact that I'm an English lit student, during my personal reads I don't usually find myself mentally noting every single good simile, but some of these I couldn't help thinking.. damn, that's so good!

Next what I loved or at least appreciated was the characterisation. Every single character that I can think of was morally grey, I could never decide whether to love or to hate them. They might do something super admirable one moment, then completely disappoint you the next, which I found so profoundly human.

As much as the fragmented and extremely unreliable narration frustrated me, it was very brilliantly done.

Now for some minor issues I had. Disclaimer, I know that these are issues that are personal to me as a reader, and most of these were absolutely intentional by Atwood. I will say that this is an extremely clever book, but cleverness doesn't always constitute enjoyment.

Personally I struggle with ambiguous endings and whilst I found it clever I equally found it frustrating.

I also struggled to feel as immersed in the world of Gilead as I have with other dystopian worlds. The very nature of Offred having limited knowledge beyond her little sphere makes this the case. In terms of world building what I will say though is that, of course, it is scary how close to home it often felt. As of now the book reserves its timeless status.

Overall, I rated it a 3.5 stars, for a very clever book that I enjoyed most of the way through, but for reasons which I've attempted to unpack, the ending didn't satisfy me as much as some of my absolute favourite books have.

I knew for most of this book that it would be a 5 star read for me and the ending confirmed this. I haven't felt as stunned finishing a book for a long time. For one, something about Mary Shelley's writing style which I can't quite pin down felt so satisfying to me, somewhere in the rich language and the flow of it all. Not to mention the fact that this book goes to town on my favourite literary themes of all time: gender, nature and religion. I could write dissertation level waffle right now and unpack everything but I'll keep it short because I can't even begin to do it justice.