3.75 stars

Another of the intellectual offspring of The Handmaid's Tale, another horrific vision of a future where women are legally considered subhuman, "walking uteruses," as this book called it.

There are some iffy things with the premise (the technology required to pull off this ban on women's voices would be prohibitively expensive), and I wish the author had delved more into the psychology of the loss of the voice. And you could argue that the MC's perfect situation with 1. a husband with Oval Office access, 2. an old college roommate who was at the heart of the feminist movement, and 3. a career history that puts her at the heart of the latest geopolitical and scientific drama.... well, it's all a bit convenient.

But ultimately, what saved this book for me was two things: the concept, and the son. Giving the MC a son who is bought into the religio-political rhetoric/movement that silences his mother is VERY GOOD.

So, 3.75 stars. Nice.

At first, I worried that this book would be a pale cousin of The Handmaid’s Tale, and it bears more than a passing similarity to that dystopia. But after the first third, the book turns away from that toward a more conventional mystery story full of conveniently placed red herrings and missed cues. It felt very much to me like we were checking off milestones on an outline, and it’s missing a lot of the detail and gravitas I would expect because everything resolves so neatly, much of it in an epilogue where the action happens “offscreen.” The readers’ guide revealed that the book was written in just two months, and that explained a lot for me; it’s written well enough, but it feels rushed and conventional rather than truly terrifying or groundbreaking. I would have loved to read the version of this story that took two years to write.

Whew. I read this in a day, which I haven't done in awhile. It's very propulsive, at first, because the setup is great and the tightness in your chest is compelling, and later, because (unfortunately) the book turns action-y and you need to see what happens.

The hook is genius-- girls and women are limited to 100 words per day. There's good reason for a patriarchal society to silence women, and the book (set basically right now) does a good job showing why. The other issues broke my heart-- what if girls never really get to speak? How do humans acquire language? Some good juicy science-y stuff. What about love? Pillow talk, baring one's soul to a new love-- how does that work when you can't talk? Even Offred gets to talk with her friends at the grocery store (digression: that actually makes the TV series more powerful for me; when the Handmaids open their mouths and normal modern speech comes out, belying the weird sci-fi world they live in.)

The last third breaks down some; too many implausible turns (the timeline itself doesn't make any sense), too much thriller stuff. I've seen some reviews hate on the book for needing a man to save the day-- well, the men have the power. The bigger theme is the "when good men stand by" one. And the hate for the anti-Christian perspective: well, um. Who the fuck do you think we have to thank for the state we're actually in in real life? Jesus H Christ, and I don't mean you, real Jesus, because you would not have stood for this shit.

A ideia é fantástica. Assustadora, sem dúvida, mas a premissa do livro é atraente especialmente para quem se vê como feminista. Talvez tenha sido por isso que tenha ficado desiludida: em 2019 espero que a literatura feminista se foque nas mulheres e não apenas sobre as mulheres. Sinto que pecou muito por isso, por ter pegado no habitual romance heterossexual, entre coisas relacionadas, como força motora na vida das mulheres, principalmente nas protagonistas das próprias histórias - como é o caso do livro. Isso incomodou-me pois, mais uma vez, as mulheres apresentam-se como elementos secundários mesmo quando o livro é sobre elas e pensando na sua perspectiva.

Fora esta questão, que me levou a baixar a nota de 4 para 3 estrelas após processar o que me estava a incomodar, o livro realmente é capaz de nos levar a sentir raiva do patriarcado porque nada do que é apresentado aqui é incomum ou um exagero: são coisas que acontecem, mesmo no dia-a-dia, de forma frequente e em quase todo o lado. A distopia apresentada está próxima da realidade e nisso o livro é bastante envolvente - de uma forma emocional, até.

Falha, sem dúvida, por cair nos clichés do feminismo branco e heterossexual. Se inicialmente pensava que era uma forma de demonstrar como até na repressão algumas pessoas são privilegiadas, depressa me apercebi - ou senti - que era a autora a ser ela mesma através da personagem. E é necessário começar a dar voz a um feminismo mais interseccional, completo e inclusivo.