The Bastards Cannot Grind The Handmaid's Tale Down (or Get It Off the Best Sellers List)

By Madeleine Davies  |  February 6, 2017 | 11:40pm
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With the first full length trailer for Hulu’s adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale debuting during Sunday night’s Super Bowl, Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel about a hyper-patriarchal society in which fertile woman are forced to be handmaids (i.e. sex slaves) to society’s elite has—like the the Republic of Gilead ruling over what remains of the United States—risen to the top of the Amazon best sellers list.

Currently claiming the number one spot that was previously held by Milo Yiannopoulos’ Dangerous (which now sits adorably nestled between The Handmaid’s Tale and George Orwell’s 1984), The Handmaid’s Tale surge in recent popularity can be linked both to the Hulu series—which stars Elisabeth Moss as Offred, the titular handmaid—and the increased likelihood that that the Trump administration is using the Atwood novel as an aspirational guidebook for their four-to-eternity-year plan.

Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale debuts April 26th, but Jezebel fully endorses picking up the book before then. Both because it’s good and because no one knows how much longer it will be legal for women to read.

 
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