3.5-3.75. I enjoyed this book. I wanted to know what was going to happen next. I didn't know whom to trust. I can see why the two main characters made the choices they made early on. The world was dangerous and cruel.

Reads like Dave Eggers' "The Circle," i.e. the message is more important than the storytelling, i.e. not the author's best work.

It was a fun read but did get a little fantastical.

Started off strong as a near-future dystopian story, but it took such a weird left turn (sex-robots and Elvis impersonators?) with the resolution speeding at you and plans going off without a hitch - I was hoping for a twist at the end to redeem it, but it was unsatisfying. The best part about this was the frighteningly accurate way Atwood writes the inner monologues of the dim-witted protagonists.

Charmaine and Stan are homeless and living in their car. They are desperate to find a way out of their situation. Charmaine sees an advertisement which appears to offer them the answer. You can return to your suburban existence for 6 months out of the year. The catch is you have to alternate each suburban month with a month in prison.

I loved the premise of this book and truly enjoyed the first 75% of the book but then it just fell off the rails for me in the last 25%

I wish I had read this book before I read the Handmaids Tale/ Testaments.
It is such a great(read horrible if it were real) idea that seems like an idea that could be proposed in real life.
However the Handmaids Tale did it better and it was hard not to compare while reading them.
Where The Handmaids Tale alluded to events we do not see happen in a way that works, this story leaves a lot of things unexplained that is more difficult to understand how the main characters got there.
Lastly I really liked the morality of the characters and how no one was pure, the best part of this book by far were the shifting views of the main characters.

This book was definitely interesting. There were lots of unexpected turns and situations that really make you think/wonder. But I couldn't help get over the fact that the plot was completely strange. Very odd and a bit creepy at times. Nonetheless, it kept me engaged, and was definitely like no book I have read before.

I'm a diehard Atwood fan and was psyched about another dystopian entry from her. Interesting premise? Check. Great title? Check. Cool book jacket? Sure, why not.

But it didn't pan out. I trust Atwood so much as a storyteller that even up until the last page I was sure she was going to pull back the veil on this mess of a novel and I'd realize "Oh, it was a good book, I just didn't get it until now!" But sadly, no. The whole book to me felt like one long misstep.

Stan and Charmaine are caricatures. They're emotionally unintelligent and do nothing to make the reader care about them, or to find them compelling. Their motivations and actions are hard to understand, and are never earned.

There were hints at the beginning of emotional resonance. Potential for it. But as the book went on it just kept getting more farcical. Credit to Atwood for dialing up the wit and irony. There were parts I knew were funny, but I wasn't able to laugh.

At some point the book seriously lost its way. Or maybe my expectations were in the wrong place. For the first quarter or so it felt like it was heading in the direction of a tale of how people will give up freedom for security, but it trailed off to be about desire, kink, robots and Elvis impersonators.

At one point Atwood writes "This whole thing is crazed...You couldn't make it up. [Stan]'s finding it hard to take it seriously. But it is serious." That pretty well sums it up.

I still love Margaret Atwood, and I'll look forward to her next entry, though maybe with a bit of trepidation.