Margaret Atwood presents a chilling dystopic novel set in the Republic of Gilead, formerly the United States, after a radical theocratic revolution. In a time of declining birthrates, fertile women are dispersed to high-ranking white men as baby-making handmaids. If a handmaid cannot reproduce, she is exiled to the Colonies, an uber-polluted wasteland. One of these handmaids, Offred, not only remembers her life before the revolution, but is determined to reclaim it.