Read The North- The Handmaid’s Tale

Last weekend was Canada Book Day, and as we head into summer we’ll be celebrating Canada’s 150th birthday hence the #Canada150 you might be seeing everywhere at the moment. Indigo Books has created a #ReadTheNorth campaign, a celebration of the best in Canadian literature, and to kick it off with Canada Book Day, I was fortunate enough to be sent a copy of The Handmaid’s Tale.

I personally never read this book in school, we did read other dystopian tales such as George Orwell’s 1984, but not this Margaret Atwood classic. Additionally, I’m one that usually steers away from any content (films, books ect) that has a futuristic genre. I like to read about history, or science, or self-help… so it was fun to have book picked by someone else that I normally wouldn’t have thought twice about.

An avid reader, I picked up the book Sunday morning and literally couldn’t put it down. I think I finished it in a day, or two- because let’s be honest, I had some adulting to do like laundry and feeding the herd…

The book was riveting, chilling even and made you really sit and question a lot of the ideologies in our current society, even when I wasn’t glued to the book. Honestly, I’ve been thinking about it all week and taking stock of all the freedom’s we take for granted. I won’t go into too much detail because I really think everyone should read this book. Even if you already have in school, I’d be interested of what your opinion would be now in present time. If you can’t get to the book, they are airing a 10 episode series on Bravo starting April 30th. I’m interested to see how close they stay to the original story line!

And stay tuned for more of the #ReadTheNorth, us Canadian’s have some kick ass authors and I’m excited to explore and learn more as we head into summer!