Theloopylululog

Which book’s world would be the absolute worst to live in?

I can’t think of just one, and I don’t have to think too hard.

In no particular order, these books win the contest, hands down!

The Handmaid’s Tale:

No fucking way do I want to be caught dead in this dystopian, totalitarian, religious regime of Gilead where women are stripped of all rights and basic human dignity. I can’t read, I can’t write, I can’t work, and I can’t own property.

Where I am just property, imagine being color-coded, as if being branded like an animal for slaughter.

I am either the Wife of a Commander dressed in blue forever, or in green as a Martha (domestic worker), or in brown as an Aunt, where I work for the regime and train the handmaids to be docile and submissive.

And who is a Handmaid? A fertile woman unaffected by the pollution and nuclear fallout, employed by Commanders as a sex slave to bear children and populate Gilead, doing God’s work. Naturally, dressed in what else? Ox-blood red.

A world where crime against women is what is discussed while bread is being slathered with butter every morning. Where men are as good as gods and women… well, nothing better than useful flies, if something like that exists.

And no one hesitates to kill. There is actually a wall in the public square where those who dare to speak or act against the regime are hung to death as casually as hanging clothes to dry on a clothesline.

I didn’t read the book by Margaret Atwood but saw the series, all five seasons. After several weeks of spending my nights having nightmares, it finally washed out of my system.

NEVER, EVER GOING THERE. I would rather continue my fight to be heard and respected here on Earth, where I am still free to think, even if it comes with constraints.

Gone with the Wind:

Tell me one thing. Why did this book become famous?

I haven’t read the book, but everyone, including my sister, talks about this tale in glowing, glamorous words.

Me?

All I hear is that Scarlett O’Hara starved herself to maintain a 17-inch waist to squeeze herself into Rhett Butler’s arms.

Really?

Let’s not talk about the slavery that is romanticized and the racism that tries to pass off as humor.

I would rather stay home, eat well, fit into my own clothes, and remain a spinster. I ain’t a self-absorbed idiot like O’Hara and am doing no stupid thing like her to find myself a Rhett Butler. Thank you, but no, thank you.

Using his own words on him, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Ayn Rand’s overrated books:

You might be considered a must-read author, but I am sorry, Ms. Rand; your prose is as dry as sand, and I am not willing to put my mind through the drudgery of being surrounded by the sweat of your characters that are a grind.

I will save myself the torture of being raped by your didactic world. Being a part of your world is like trying to cut my wrist with a blunt ballpoint pen without the nib.

Slowly.

Very slowly.

Lulu is many things, Ms. Rand, but boring she is NOT!

So NO.

Gone Girl:

If you have read the book, you know why.

If you haven’t, don’t ask me why. You don’t want to know why.

Another Country by James Baldwin:

Why? A bombastic review, filled with remorse and regret at wasting my precious three days on this utter, crap-filled nonsense, already lives on my blog.

Another Country by James Baldwin: My Unforgettable Book Regret

I have read tons of books over the years, and there are many more that come to mind, but these are my top five of the absolute worst fictional book worlds—I wouldn’t dream of inhabiting them even if I were paid all the money in the world.