How Lucky by Will Leitch

Daniel has a degenerative disease called Spinal Muscular Atrophy or SMA that has him confined to a wheelchair. He is slowly losing more and more of his abilities. He can't walk, has minimal speech and his ultimate death is just around the corner. He lives alone and has a job working online for a regional airline. 

Daniel is lucky in that he lives alone, has a support system and people who help make it possible for him to live independently. His life isn't exciting or thrilling but that changes when he sees a women get into a car who is reported missing the next day. 

Daniel reaches out to others but no one seems to believe him, so he reaches out to Reddit, thus setting things in motion making that can endanger his life.

The book started off strong and I was intrigued but then .... it feel flat. I can't exactly pinpoint what happened but I found myself skimming pages to get to the resolution. Skimming pages isn't something I do often but I am thankful that I read this book as I knew nothing about SMA and was able to further educate myself on it. 

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

 The Handmaid's Tale takes place in Gilead, a city in a future dystopian world.  A world in which women are mearley objects. They are essentially put into three categories, Marthas, Handmaids and Wives. The Wives are infertile and the Handmaids have the potential to be fertile. Handmaids are used to produce children for the Wives. There are strict rules to follow and broken rules can result in death. 

Offred is our main character and a handmaiden. Her only purpose it to produce a child for the Commander and his wife. She will be used as a baby factory going from Commander to Commander until she can no longer fulfill her purpose. If she is unable to produce a child her fate will be ugly and uncomfortable. 

Offred's life is told in the past and present giving hints of how the past was and what lead to the formation of Gilead. 

The Handmaid's Tale touches upon many important issues of the past, present and perhaps the future.  The reading can often be slow moving but push through it to get to the message of this cautionary tale.