Horror Story

I just finished reading Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale for the first time. Last month I read The Ruins, considered to be "the best horror story of the twenty-first century" by none other than Stephen King. The Ruins was a great read and very scary, but The Handmaid's Tale was profoundly more frightening.

A plot synopsis from sparknotes.com:
In The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood explores the consequences of a reversal of women’s rights. In the novel’s nightmare world of Gilead, a group of conservative religious extremists has taken power and turned the sexual revolution on its head. Feminists argued for liberation from traditional gender roles, but Gilead is a society founded on a “return to traditional values” and gender roles, and on the subjugation of women by men. What feminists considered the great triumphs of the 1970s—namely, widespread access to contraception, the legalization of abortion, and the increasing political influence of female voters—have all been undone. Women in Gilead are not only forbidden to vote, they are forbidden to read or write. Atwood’s novel also paints a picture of a world undone by pollution and infertility, reflecting 1980s fears about declining birthrates, the dangers of nuclear power, and environmental degradation.

This novel will haunt me for a long time.