The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale is the story of the Handmaid Offred. It's set in the future, where Gilead has taken over the United States and wages religious war on other countries. The women are now divided into four groups: Handmaids, Wives, Marthas, and Econowives. Wives are the wives of the Commanders, the powerful men. They wear blue. Handmaids are the child bearers for the Wives. They wear red. Marthas are the cooks, maids, and childcare. They wear green. Econowives are the wives of regular men, and they do everything. They wear stripes of each class because they do it all.
The story is told by Offred. She tells of her life working as a Handmaid for the Commander and his Wife, and of her life before everything changed. Her husband and daughter. Her job. Her friends. She wants to escape but there is no way out.
I loved this book. It was a little hard to follow because, being told by Offred's point of view, it's told as history. The knowledge of what happened is assumed. In the back of the book are "historical notes" that make it a little easier to understand. The end is a cliffhanger, but with the historical notes a happy ending is implied. This was a wonderful book, Margaret Atwood is a brilliant author, and I can't wait to find a copy of this to buy for myself.