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This is one of my favourite books. I first read it many years ago, and then re-read it recently. One of the things that I love about this book (and several other's of Atwood) is that she has a knack for taking elements of current socio-political trends and then pushing them a little further so that the context feels familiar yet different. I think it is also timely right now given the potential impact on the US with a regime in power that favours limitations to reproductive freedom and sexuality.
On Nyssa and issybird's points on Offred, heroism and survival: I don't know that we can evaluate their choices fairly. It is also my own instinct to think that the women could have done more. I mean, they could remember freedom. This was not generations after a significant change. The women could remember a different life. How could they not do more to reclaim their freedom? But I also think that that is Atwood's point. We have many examples in history of a social group "submitting" to a worsening of their own oppression. I think the reality is that fear and the desire to survive conspire to make resistance seem hopeless or too frightening, combined with the very real threats of violence. The handmaidens saw what was done to those who resisted.
On the epilogue: I remember disliking it the first time I read it, as I wanted to know more, but now it doesn't bother me. I do want to know what happens to Offred but there is also a bit of hope in the epilogue that maybe domination can't last forever. It makes the book less bleak. However, maybe it is false hope.
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