Imo it is always hard to go from a movie/TV show to the book. Books create a universe inside your head, but now you’re already going into it with expectations. And when it doesn’t meet expectations, it’s disappointing.
I read The Handmaid’s Tale back around 2016, when Trump was elected. I was actually stunned that he had won - because like many others, I had missed the warning signs of a wave of populism. To me, this set the stage for The Handmaid’s Tale to feel like a very real possibility - if this guy is now in power, then what next?
It was easy to insert myself into the rather basic world of The Handmaid’s Tale especially with the humdrum details of everyday life. This dystopian world does not always look like outright torture or murder. It looks like fear, distrust, and control that has been normalized.
And quite frankly, I found that the Handmaid’s sole societal purpose of being continuously raped and impregnated is disturbing to the core. In your post, you’ve accepted that this is just part of the narrative. The abuse of female genitalia and reproduction is often overlooked in depictions of a dystopian world, so I think we’ve sanitized this brutal reality from the realm of possibilities. And yet, this is still a lived-reality for girls and women across the world today.