The Handmaid’s Tale
by Margaret Atwood

In the author's attempt to redefine or sometimes just detract from spiritual truths she becomes very blasphemous, taking many quotes from the Bible and images from the church and twisting them into misquotes and giving them degraded meaning or simply stripping meaning from them. In a school, which refuses to teach what the Bible does say, how can there be justification to belittle and degrade it, leaving students with the maximum of misunderstandings and no fuel in their minds to correct the distorted truth. This is about the worst case of bias there could be when untruths are taught about the Bible with an accompanying total adamant refusal to look at the original source. It is disgusting bigotry.

The sex in this book is explicit and since it is so sick it proves itself to be a very poor introduction to intercourse for the uninitiated. (According to statistics this is at least half of the high school readers.) Literature class should not be teaching any student HOW to have sex, much less the details of such a sick procedure painted as the male dominance over females. Furthermore, sexual details of the book prove to be titillating and therefore disqualify the book from use in public classroom. This author's bitterness toward males creates unnecessary fears and obsessions over sexuality issues. She defines sexual intercourse as "love" even when there is no relationship between the two people. She writes with a very unhealthy view of sexuality.

The author involves violence in the story with a particular relish that glorifies bloody, disgusting details. This is one more story that makes a hero out of the person who kills their own friend to "protect" him."

One of the seven novels challenged for classroom use by community reviewers.