Description
For this assignment, please choose one of the 8 books listed below. Your written academic book review essay should be about
Please refer to these guidelines and suggestions for writing a book review from UNC's Writing Center:
https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/book-reviews/
When writing up your review, please follow this basic outline from the USC Library Resource Center:
For a critical, essay-length book review consider including the following elements, depending on their relevance to your assignment:
a. the bibliographic citation for the book;
b. an opening statement that ought to peak the reader’s interest in the book under review
c. a section that points to the author’s main intentions (including author's purpose, objectives, argument, and main ideas);
d. a section that discusses the author’s ideas and the book’s thesis (argument) within a scholarly perspective (in this case communication, gender, social construction, gender equality);
e. if you found errors, omissions, or confusing aspects of the book, point the major ones and explain their significance. Explain whether they detract from the thesis and the arguments made in the book;
f. state the book's place within a strand of scholarship and summarize its importance to the discipline--this should be a critical assessment of the book within the larger scholarly discourse--what contributions does this book make to our understanding of communication, the rhetorical saliency of gender, and/or gender equality?
g. include information about the author's affiliation and authority
h. indicate the intended readership of the book and whether the author succeeds in engaging the audience on the appropriate level;
i. your name and affiliation.
Good examples of essay-length reviews may be found in the scholarly journals included in the JSTOR collection, in the New York Review of Books, and similar types of publications, and in cultural publications like the New Yorker magazine.
Submit your book review no later than Monday, February 17 at 8:00 AM.
If you have any questions, please let Professor Borda know.
Book Options:
(Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.)- The Mother of All Questions: Further Reports from the Feminist Revolutions (Links to an external site.) by Rebecca Solnit
- Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger (Links to an external site.) by Rebecca Traister
- Air Traffic: A Memoir of Ambition and Manhood in America (Links to an external site.) by Gregory Pardlo
- Bad Feminist: Essays (Links to an external site.) by Roxane Gay
- The Handmaid's Tale (Links to an external site.) by Margaret Atwood
- Heavy: An American Memoir (Links to an external site.) by Kiese Laymon
- Know My Name: A Memoir (Links to an external site.) by Chanel Miller
Explanation & Answer
Attached.
The Handmaid’s Tale Book Review
Name of student
Professor’s name
Course title
Date
Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” (1985) considers an America that has been
transformed from a liberal democracy into a strict theocratic dictatorship based on 17th-century
puritan roots. In this world called Gilead, the constitution and Congress no longer hold any sort
of political power as power has been transferred to a religious sect. Gilead is also affected by a
toxic environment that has resulted in a sharp decline in fertility; as is typical in a totalitarian
dynamic, the ruling class monopolizes the valuables which in this society is fertile women who
are then required to serve as handmaids. Handmaids are birth vessels, and the children they bear
do not belong to them but their masters as is the case in the story of Jacob in the bible. This
book, therefore, serves as a feminist critique of a world determined to control women’s bodies
based on biological determinism and misogyny as well as a reminder that women are
complicated beings who exist outside their reproductive ability
Margaret Atwood is a poet, an essayist and a novelist most known for “The Circle
Game” (1966), “The Handmaid’s Tale” (1985), “The Blind Assassin” (2000) and “The Tent”
(2006). In her extremely prolific career with over 40 books of poetry, essays and novels none of
her work is as popular as The Handmaids tale which has gained critical acclaim and notoriety for
almost for over three decades. The book has been translated into over 40 languages, performed
as an opera, adapted as a film and is currently a hit TV series on Hulu. Atwood has received
numerous awards for her work including the Booker prize in 2000 and 2019 and a literary
lifetime achievement by PEN Center in 2017. Her work usually revolves around role reversal
and follows women seeking their relationship with the world. “The Handmaid’s Tale” marked
her first dive into speculative fiction, which was a risk since she was not familiar with the genre.
This book would, however, mark her legacy since it has long-running themes that continue to
have implications in every generation. What makes it remarkable is the fact that it is grounded in
historical reference and does not reference any futuristic technology or invention that was not
available in the ‘80s. This is a common trait in the genre and often leads to sermonizing and a
lack of plausibility. Atwood’s version of the future was therefore not very off from ‘80’s
America, which was character...