NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE • A modern masterpiece that “reminds us of the power of truth in the face of evil” (People)—and can be read on its own or as a sequel to Margaret Atwood’s classic, The Handmaid’s Tale. “Atwood’s powers are on full display” (Los Angeles Times) in this deeply compelling Booker Prize-winning novel, now updated with additional content that … Booker Prize-winning novel, now updated with additional content that explores the historical sources, ideas, and material that inspired Atwood.
More than fifteen years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale, the theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead maintains its grip on power, but there are signs it is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, the lives of three radically different women converge, with potentially explosive results.
Two have grown up as part of the first generation to come of age in the new order. The testimonies of these two young women are joined by a third: Aunt Lydia. Her complex past and uncertain future unfold in surprising and pivotal ways.
With The Testaments, Margaret Atwood opens up the innermost workings of Gilead, as each woman is forced to come to terms with who she is, and how far she will go for what she believes.
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Don’t miss Atwood’s update to the world of Gilead. It was decades in the making– The Handmaid’s Tale was published in 1985! So she had a lot of years to think about creating a backstory and a resolution. Fascinating and chilling.
Good follow up to Handmaid’s Tale.
This is everything I wanted out of a sequel to the Handmaid’s Tale – while it doesn’t quite match the magic of its predecessor (what book could?), it leaves the reader with a satisfying sense of closure.
Fantastic. Margaret Atwood at her pinnacle. A worthy sequel to THE HANDMAID’S TALE.
The perfect companion to The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood is true to her story, and her readers with The Testaments. It was difficult to put down; the “just one more chapter” mentality takes over and the pages fly. It’s hard to say all I loved about this book without spoilers, so I’ll leave it there. If you loved The Handmaid’s Tale and want to know what happened after Offred’s was “done” then read The Testaments.
Lovely
If you have not read The Handmaid’s Tale or watched any of the 3 seasons of the HULU series I don’t thnk you would come away with a full understanding of the story. This book is written as a narrative by each of 3 characters from the original, but 15 years into the future.
Atwood certainly adds to the story with both background and new events, providing insight into who the controlling forces are within Gilead and the weaknesses leading to its eventual demise. There are many surprises along the way and it is finalized by another symposium, some 200 years later, where they are examining artifacts from the Giladeaen period and trying to put the pieces together to determine why the experiment failed.
The author has provided a multitude of openings for the development of side plots around so many characters that I am so looking forward to several more enjoyable seasons of the HULU production. The writers of the show have done any excellent job with the interpretation of Margaret Atwood’s story thus far and I hope they continue.
We’ve been anticipating the sequel to Handmaid’s Tale for some time, and Atwood does not disappoint. The Testaments, like it’s predecessor, is written from the viewpoint of 4 women within the Gilead dystopian society. Some will be disappointed to find that the book does not pick up with Offred and what has become of her, although there are enough details to glean some information on that. If you have not read The Handmaid’s Tale in some time, I’d recommend doing so, just to re-familiarize with some of what led to the formation of Gilead, some of the key players and tensions. The story is told through the eyes of Aunt Lydia, a high-ranking official in Gilead, and three young women (two growing up in Gilead, the other in Canada). Becca and Agnes Jemima attend the Vidalia school, an elite preparatory school guiding them in the womanly arts, all the better to prepare them for their roles as wives (likely to much older, more powerful Commanders). Jade, in contrast, grows up in Canada in a world reminiscent to that of today’s US and Canada (Atwood is Canadian). There are tensions between the countries, with key operatives from both countries working to either recruit/lure women across the border (into Gilead to serve as an econowife or handmaid) or save them by providing sanctuary in Canada. There is the tension of which side will triumph, and the tensions of the girls’ plights and who is helping and hindering the situation. The ending leaves some things up tp the imagination as we realize we are reading older testaments of life as it had been. I really enjoyed this, and the timing could not be more appropriate as a cautionary tale.
The Testaments (along with Season 3 of The Handmaid’s Tale) gave me what the television series had begun to lack: hope. Atwood, of course, knows the characters she created best, and she gives some expected and not so expected ones a voice. She’s made The Testaments original, but it also doesn’t conflict with seasons two and three of the series, which we know doesn’t have a basis in The Handmaid’s Tale. A read that’s well worth it, especially if you haven’t seen the series. And in addition to hope, there’s redemption–in a way–for an unlikely character.
The Testaments is very, very satisfying. The Testaments checked marked every question I craved answers to after finishing The Handmaids Tale.
The Testaments also gave me everything I wanted from the last season of The Handmaids Tale series on HULU. I lost interest in the series last year. The oppressive nature of the show was delicious at first but then turned sour and felt unrelentingly tedious. The Testaments however gave me everything I needed to feel fulfilled and to once again fall deeply in love with Atwood.
Boring. Don’t waste your time or money. None of the edginess of the first book. Can’t believe this is the same author who gave us the Handmaid’s Tale.
I read the first book in this series, The Handmaid’s Tale, many years ago–when it was first published–it made me think back then–then the movie came out-and I watched that. By then I was getting kind of nervous because some of what was in that book was beginning to happen, right here in the United States of America. I was left with a couple of questions in my mind which the 2nd book-The Testaments-answered. Of course now, what happened in Gilead, is in many ways happening right now.
How were people able to live in that totalitarian state of Giliad. Why did the women put up with what the “rich men in power” did to them. Would the women somehow find a way to rebel and overthrow that regime? All these questions and more are answered in the Testaments. The story of three totally different women–told by them.
If you read The Handmaid’s Tale or saw that movie–or even if you didn’t (and I suggest you do) then you will want to read this book. It is fiction but hopefully it will open your eyes to what may be happening right now!!
The Testaments: The Sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale Kindle Edition
by Margaret Atwood
The thirty-four years I waited for this book was worth every moment. Margaret Atwood has a unique ability to tell the stories of women. Not just because she is one, she has a view into the terrors, the troubles and the strength of women. Where the theme of e handmaid’s Tale was that totalitarianism can sneak up on us, the theme of The Testaments is that eventually they will fall, an important message for our fraught times.
Filled with references to religious women and movements, Atwood builds a story based on the societies women build – of healers, of mothers and of rebels. She fills this story with the suffering of women, told in such a way every reader will feel it to the seat of the soul.
Fans of the Hulu series will find that some of the characters, Aunt Lydia in particular are different than they are used to, but her story is key to how women survive and thrive in the darkest of environments, be they the idealistic young or the carefully plotting mature.
Reading The Testaments, I found myself underlining some of the most beautiful turns of phrases, and I wasn’t the only one.
Told in the testimonies of two girls and the testament of Aunt Lydia, the story is pealed back in layers. The reader’s expectations are constantly overturned or blown away.
The good news is we get an idea of when both THT and The Testaments take place. We also get an idea of what happened to Gilead in glimpses and bits.
If The Handmaid’s Tale was a warning, this was a message of hope.
This will join its predecessor as a classic to be studied in all levels of Academia.
5 stars out of 5
https://www.amazon.com/Testaments-Novel-Margaret-Atwood-ebook/dp/B07KVLPYDQ
This is a must-read!
Wow! . . . just wow. Margaret Atwood’s THE TESTAMENTS is powerful, well written, scary, but hopeful and satisfying! I read it in less than two days, finishing just before bed, and I awoke from a dream in which I kicked open a door to rescue a young woman from a rough man. I seldom remember dreams, but this was a moving book.
I have a no-spoilers rule for myself, so am reluctant to reveal too much about the important aspects of the three threads of the plot, just that they do not disappoint. A bit of wisdom, “once a judge, always a judge” and the “mills . . . grind slowly but . . . exceeding small.” A bit of comfort, “The minor infirmities of age. I hope you will live long enough to experience them.” I was tickled to recognize a pattern in the names of the wedding arrangers, “Aunt Lorna, Aunt Sara Lee, and Aunt Betty” and the offered name, Aunt Maybelline, but it took TIME Magazine’s excellent interview to alert me to the Schlafly Cafe. I admired this masterful bit of indirect permission, “You are strong. Strength is a gift. Gifts should be employed.”
The teacher in me agrees that “the young are idealistic, have an underfedveloped sense of their own mortality, and . . . an exaggerated thirst for justice.” We’ve seen this in young activists, and I applaud them for their efforts.