The TV show was about freedom and the willpower of people who want to gain back their loved ones at all costs, confined in a theocratic dystopia. I was expecting the same here.
Instead. The book does not talk about freedom in an oppressive society, it talks about seeking desires in a world where they are prevented. Offred wants sex, love, a child. She is haunted by memories of the time when she was independent, but she doesn't believe it is possible to escape from Gilead. Even Ofglen isn't able to make a dissident out of her, Offred just turns her back to politics innuendo once she is satisfied with staying with Nick. Even when she is arrested at the end, it is clear that it has nothing to do with politics and subversives.
I probably prefer the Offred shown in the series, committed to find her daughter and to save her more than to find pleasure, which still I find perfectly justifiable.

The historical notes are just genius, a self-analysis by the book, utterly consistent.

People complaining about the absence of quotation marks: fuck you.