Handmaid's Tale's basic premise is that the American religious right creates a fundamentalist breakaway state in a large part of the continental U.S. in which women are essentially chattel (to limit myself to the most symbolic thing, they no longer have names of their own but are called "Offred", "Ofjohn", "Ofmichael" and so on). I suppose Atwood is free to write all the dystopian stories she wants to write, and I hope it's clear that I fully support the struggle for women rights, while having little sympathy for a fundamentalist Christian outlook; but all the same, I found it both idiotic and in poor taste to accuse the American religious right of such extremes. Like I said, that annoyed me so much that I could not bring myself to appreciate the writing or plotting, though I'm sure it was fine.