I know that many readers consider it as a warning to women' in the face of rising chauvinism and puritanism in our society, but something doesn't feel right.

For one thing, there's no real explanation of how and why things deteriorated so fast so definitely. There's no explanation about the life and conditions of the lowest ranks of that society. Do the women who are at the bottom of the social ladder continue to have babies? Or does society as a whole rely only on the handmaids? And furthermore, how can the author even think that healthy young males would meekly accept the no-sex ban for a considerable length of time? Even in the Muslim society, which closely resembles the fantasy world Mrs. Atwood created, men manage to have outlets to their sexual drive even if rules and prohibitions are strict.

Seems to me like the author doesn't know men at all. As for the women portrayed here, they're meek, petty, jealous, envious and in constant competition with each other. This isn't who I or my women friends are, which leads me to believe that this author's misunderstanding includes women as well as men. …

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Mrs Weiner is a gifted author. She has written a very enthralling tale about two sisters who seem at such different ends when young, then switching sides when growing up save to reveal how similar they have been their entire life.

Being unnatural and nonconformist is what one sister starts out as only to discover the need to confirm and blend in, to belong to the cliché of femininity that the other sister aspired for when barely old enough to walk.

But there's a world between conformity and nonconformity that the author fails to address whatsoever.

For Mrs. Weiner, it's like women have just two opposite choices available: either go with the current or swim upstream, as if women can know no balance in their lives and are enraged by this awareness.

But women are so much more than these cliches. And what surprises me most is that the women portrayed by Mrs. Weiner seem unable to teach their daughters how to find a better life and change society.

Ironically, the only form of perceivable change is through the birth of a grandson, the first male after a long line of …

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