Last week I finished Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale. It haunted me for days after I finished it and was such a good read. It's not a book that I would normally be drawn to - set in a futuristic world run by Evangelicals but it really expanded my thoughts and left the reader with many, many things to think about.
In addition to the provocative story line, Margaret Atwood's writing was just beautiful. A few lines just stopped me cold. Her writing was succinct and powerful and a pleasure to read. It was a book that made me a better person for having read it. You don't come across one of those every day.
"I admired my mother in some ways, although things between us were never easy. She expected too much from me, I felt. She expected me to vindicate her life for her, and the choices she'd made. I didn't want to live my life on her terms. I didn't want to be the model offspring, the incarnation of her ideas. We used to fight about that. I am not your justification for existence, I once said to her once. I want her back, I want everything back, the way it was. But there is no point to it, this wanting."
“They wore blouses with buttons down the front that suggested the possibilities of the word undone. These women could be undone; or not. They seemed to be able to choose. ”
“We lived, as usual by ignoring. Ignoring isn't the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.”
“Better never means better for everyone... It always means worse, for some.”
