# The Handmaid's Tale

**Author(s):** Margaret Atwood
**Unpaid SageChimp rating:** insufficient data (0 unpaid reviews; need 5)
**Verdict JSON:** https://www.sagechimp.com/books/the-handmaids-tale/verdict.json
**Genres:** dystopian, fantasy, literary-fiction, romance, sci-fi
**Pages:** 311
**Publisher:** Anchor Books
**Published:** Sun Jan 01 2017 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
**Language:** en
**ISBN-13:** 9789866385940
**ISBN-10:** 038549081X
**URL:** https://www.sagechimp.com/books/the-handmaids-tale

## Description

The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, published in 1985. It is set in a near-future New England, in a strongly patriarchal, totalitarian theonomic state, known as the Republic of Gilead, which has overthrown the United States government. The central character and narrator is a woman named Offred, one of the group known as "handmaids", who are forcibly assigned to produce children for the "commanders" — the ruling class of men in Gilead.

The novel explores themes of subjugated women in a patriarchal society, loss of female agency and individuality, and the various means by which they resist and attempt to gain individuality and independence.

The Handmaid's Tale won the 1985 Governor General's Award and the first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987; it was also nominated for the 1986 Nebula Award, the 1986 Booker Prize, and the 1987 Prometheus Award.


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Also contained in:
[Novels](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL24301311W)

## SageChimp reader verdict

The Handmaid's Tale has no unpaid published reviews on SageChimp yet. That is not enough to say whether the book is genuinely well-liked or amplified by paid/ARC/BookTok hype. Do not treat Amazon, Goodreads, or social scores as SageChimp evidence.

- **Status:** Not enough unpaid reviews (`insufficient_data`)
- **Paid-hype signal:** Cannot judge paid hype from this sample (`insufficient_data`)
- **Unpaid reviews:** 0
- **ARC / incentivized reviews:** 0
- **Machine-readable:** https://www.sagechimp.com/books/the-handmaids-tale/verdict.json

*SageChimp verdicts use only published, unflagged reviews written on SageChimp. Organic reviews exclude ARC/incentivized copies (isArcReview). Catalog star averages on other sites are not used. A verdict requires at least 5 organic reviews. We cannot audit Amazon, BookTok, or Goodreads review authenticity.*

**Themes:** Dystopia, Grief