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Re-reading a classic: 1984 in 2020

1984 by George Orwell

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Y’all know the broad strokes of 1984: Big Brother, newspeak, telescreens, doublethink, “We have always been at war with EastAsia.” It’s entered the popular consciousness in a profound way; and for some reason thinkpieces about it have proliferated since 2016.  (I wonder why!  Truly it is a mystery.) So our small book club decided to re-read this one as adults, to see how our reactions to it might have changed, or if it was really all that.  The consensus: it’s a classic for a reason. […]

No books were harmed, this time

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

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I was 16 when I read The Handmaid’s Tale and I was just beginning my love affair with dystopian tales. I don’t think I liked bleak stories all that much growing up, but man, as soon as I read Fahrenheit 451 they were all I wanted. Give me some of that sweet, sweet harrowing future straight to the veins, and anything like it. When a friend gifted me The Handmaid’s Tale, I thought I’d love it. I read it voraciously, in about two days, and […]

Don’t Take The Memories

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

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The Memory Police is the kind of dystopia I like. No Hunger Games-esque confrontations with the Big Bad. No sadistic rolling around in the concept (aka “torture porn”). No forsaking character for story. The characters drive this story. The society they live in impacts them and they adapt. It’s a well-told tale. I would have loved to have read this book in its original language. I feel like there are probably subtleties I could have picked up on. But what I did get was good enough. Yoko […]

Under His Eye

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

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Aww. This was so good. I think Atwood did a wonderful job of showing us how Gilead came to be, how it was for those who lived there, and how it looked to others from the outside. Instead of staying with one POV throughout the story, Atwood allows us to to get fully immerse in Gilead via the POVs of a young girl named Agnes, an older girl named Daisy, and the fearsome Aunt Lydia. The character development works for these three characters as well […]

California here we come; right back where we started from

California by Edan Lepucki

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Some dystopia novels are trying to be literature, some are trying to be good trashy fun, some are trying to be profound and fail terribly, some are just way off the mark. Then there’s the category I’d put California in, which is the kind of book that doesn’t really seem sure of what it’s doing, and thus never really makes a mark on the genre or the reader. Meet Cal and Frida! They’re a typical 20-something couple in the 2050s just trying to make it […]



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