Renee Nault

I am enjoying this trend of classic literature being adapted into graphic novels, as it is a way to revisit works that I enjoyed when I was younger, without committing the time to an entire narrative book. The Handmaid's Tale is obviously enjoying a renaissance at the moment, though I read it originally when I was in high school, waaaay back in the '80s. I remember it as being disturbing, and dystopian fiction isn't really my go-to genre, but this graphic crossed my desk so I started flipping through it, and before long I was hooked. It is an unforgettable story, though over the course of 30 years, details had gone by the wayside. It all came back to me through the vivid illustrations of this lovely volume. What really struck me was that unlike many (maybe most) dystopian novels, in this book the dystopia is actually unfolding. The characters are living the change from a free democratic society to a brutal authoritarian regime, that democracy remembered in flashbacks even as their freedom is strangled, and in some cases, welcomed. The self-awareness is a revelation really. I wasn't planning on reading The Testaments, Atwood's follow-up to Handmaid, but maybe I'll pick it up. She is, after all, a master of the genre. This adaptation is a credit to that mastery.… (mehr)

(I am using this book for the "A Graphic Novel" category of Extreme Book Nerd.)

Whew. This was INTENSE. I did not know that this book existed until recently; my boss found it on the shelf. I mean, the story of "The Handmaid's Tale" is familiar to many people, but to see it come alive in a graphic novel form.....wow.

What the hardest thing about "The Handmaid's Tale" is is that it feels too....real. It is why I have not watched the Hulu adaptation; the visuals make the Offred's story all to visual and raw. It scares me that we have similarities to Gilead. I hate how there are Christians who are judgmental and two-faced like the Commander.

Still though, I could not put the book down. It's been a while since I have read the source novel but this adaptation holds its own.… (mehr)