Maybe I Just Don't Dig Margaret Atwood!

                                            This book has been, understandably, compared to "The Handmaid's Tale," and I get it, but I was not blown away by the seminal work, or have read any other of her books, so  I do concede I should give her a chance.

                                              That said, I loved "Women Talking."  It reminded me of Atwood's book and the tiniest bit of "The Crucible."  A group of women gather secretly in a barn, with a male outcast named Austin, to plan their escape from their Mennonite colony.  You see, the women were starting to have horrific hallucinations about demons assaulting them, sexually.  It wasn't demons; just demonic men in the colony.  Now, the women are not allowed to leave the colony, so the men are free to do what they want.  Even incest.  And Austin is looked down on, because he is not a skilled farmer, which in the men's eyes makes him a homosexual--even though there is no proof--whom they feel should be driven out.

                                               This info is conveyed throughout the course of their novel, as the women plot their escape.  Things move along at a leisurely and predictable pace, but the heart is the women taking back their power, and deciding to leave this oppressive environment.

                                               Those Mennonites.  It's like those women on the current Inogen commercial, when the announcer says "you can start attending religious services again."  From what I can see, these are not religious services but cult meetings.  The Mennonites are a cult.  And cults are hard to escape from.

                                                    Read this engrossing work  of fiction.  It is extremely thought provoking.