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The Handmaid's Tale

By: Margaret Atwood
Narrated by: Claire Danes
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Publisher's summary

Audie Award, Fiction, 2013

Margaret Atwood's popular dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale explores a broad range of issues relating to power, gender, and religious politics. Multiple Golden Globe award-winner Claire Danes (Romeo and Juliet, The Hours) gives a stirring performance of this classic in speculative fiction, one of the most powerful and widely read novels of our time.

After a staged terrorist attack kills the President and most of Congress, the government is deposed and taken over by the oppressive and all-controlling Republic of Gilead. Offred, now a Handmaid serving in the household of the enigmatic Commander and his bitter wife, can remember a time when she lived with her husband and daughter and had a job, before she lost even her own name. Despite the danger, Offred learns to navigate the intimate secrets of those who control her every move, risking her life in breaking the rules in hopes of ending this oppression.

Cover Art by Fred Marcellino. Used with permission of Pippin Properties, Inc.

Explore more titles performed by some of the most celebrated actors in the business in Audible’s Star-Powered Listens collection.
©1985 Margaret Atwood (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

“Claire Danes sparkles in this performance…Danes’s Offred is complex, and her flashes of intense strength highlight her vulnerability. This is a consuming listen, thanks to Danes’s emotional subtleties.” (AudioFile)

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What listeners say about The Handmaid's Tale

Average customer ratings
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    5 out of 5 stars

Terrifyingly timely - 3 decades after publication

Would you listen to The Handmaid's Tale again? Why?

I rarely listen to books twice, but this will stay on my shelf. The Handmaid's Tale is a chilling account of what life after democracy, climate destruction, or war could look like for humans.

What did you like best about this story?

An intelligent and all-consuming feminist horror story.

Which scene was your favorite?

I don't have a favorite "scene" but the ending was completely unexpected and awesome. It left me with more questions than answers.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Too long for one sitting. I preferred to listen for a few hours and then take a break to let it sink in. This is a thinking story - one that, for me, required breaks to fully experience it.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

appealing but eclectic

liked it. Didn't love it. odd stilted telling. The nature of the story not a remark on the narration.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Powerful story!

Dystopian at its best! Great narration! Gripping and horrifying! I recommend to anyone who loves literature!

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    5 out of 5 stars
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I was was there!

I loved this book. I felt that I was agonizing over everything the main character experienced. Maragaret Arwood is an excellent writer.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent!

Narrator was fantastic! Love this book. A quick read that you won't want to pause.

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Great story and fantastic narration

First time I've read this book, and I'm so glad to have heard Clare Danes' performance. Fantastic.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Typical Atwood Brilliance and a great performance

Danes does a great read, and from reading reviews on goodreads, the spoken performance might be easier to understand than the book, but saying would give some of the plot away so I won't. The story is excellent, thought written about a terrible dystopian world (that is downright eerie in its prescience, when you realize it was written in '84) so sometimes the story feels terrible. The ending is classic Atwood-- brilliant and unexpected, leaving the reader with lots to consider.

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Incredible

This book is a masterpiece. A painful and nuanced examination of what it means to be human, to be female, to be free. I absolutely couldn't put it down from beginning to end.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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A terrifying, timeless, educational classic.

I hadn't read this book since high school, and rereading it - especially in these harrowing political times - refreshed my memory of its not-altogether-implausible details in a very real way.

Focus especially on chapter 28. It doesn't sound too difficult, does it? Totalitarian take over of a government by a crazed right-wing minority? A little violence, then takeover of the American banking system, made easy by our reliance on virtual money? You don't even have to be a doomsday prepper for that particular chapter to make you queasy.

Every American should be encouraged to read this book. NOW.

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Awesome

The Handmaid's Tale is a fantastic and intriguing novel. Narration by Claire Dane was phenomenal.

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