All our feelings are valid, especially with the complex horrors of this work.

Absolutely right. This is such a smart adaptation - plot and theme are working beautifully together. And I love that Offred chose to align herself with her friend and not heed Nick's advice. He could be an Eye, he might be Resistance, but I feel there's thematic importance that she stood up for and with another…

I saw that movie back in the 90s, not long after I read the book. I liked it. It makes sense to me that there wasn't a sense of immediacy or urgency to it - the horror of the story was purely speculative. What is did really well was show Offred's lassitude. So much of the book is her coping with the lack of…

Rage, yes. But I feel like Nick's comment is not without deeper meaning. Emily was in the resistance, she had a relationship - she lived like her life still belonged to her. They made a point of breaking all that apart. She didn't break in her own mind, but they took away the little independence she had (not…

I understand the respect we want to show in using the women's actual names, but "Offred" is who she is identified as in the present. Since that identity is imposed on her, and that's part of the point of the work, I'm going with that convention when talking about the women while they're in service.

When they aren't "on assignment" they don't take their commander's names.

Because Offred said Ofglen was taken quickly and something was done to her to ensure it was done quietly, I thought they took out her tongue. I had so much anxiety for her the entire episode, especially because she wasn't making any sound. The horrifying laws revealed in the trial, her last moments with her lover,…

And June's response "thank God", a terrible ironic foreshadowing.

Yes. They are too on-the-nose, and take me out of the scenes a little.

Janine couldn't even have her own labor.

I noticed her ear tag too. And a bit of dialog later (I think with Oflgen) indicated that those tags were placed before women were sent to the Red Center.

Falco is #2 for me, after Ultravox.

Vienna is a great song.

I'm here. Where's the rest of you?

Does it make me a bad person that I wish him zero luck?

I bawled like a child when she won.

I was surprised by how quick the pace was. If you don't know something, let your brain let go of it so you can focus on the next question (instead of still trying to answer after it's gone). I looked over my old Western Civ and American History textbooks before I took it, and I did fine. Maybe look over lakes and…

The pettiness just gets funnier as they get more success with the story.

"Why do you smell like cabbage?" This movie is so great, and the casting is genius. It did the same thing The Informant! did - the actors were all comedically gifted, so they were able to play things straight, yet be very funny.

I'll be interested to know what you think about the audio version, and how the dry humor and the different narrators come across. If you want to post to the Avocado weekly book discussion, that goes up every Wednesday. (I follow that one more easily than the one here.)