I have always been a huge fan of dystopian novels, and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is one of my favorites. The Hulu show is a phenomenon and does an excellent job of staying true to the book in the first season.

I re-read The Handmaid’s Tale in anticipation of The Testaments‘ release. I was absolutely chilled to see how many parallels there are to today, so this novel still feels timely and well worth a re-read for you prior to your reading of the sequel. I think, however, if you’ve seen the show, you’ll understand what’s going on.

The novel has three different narrators: Aunt Lydia, Agnes, and Daisy. Agnes was brought up in Gilead as a young girl, and we are seeing what the world looks like from an insider’s perspective. Daisy is in Canada, and we see what an outsider thinks about what Gilead is doing. Finally, through Aunt Lydia’s perspective, we see how Gilead was founded and how she got into her position of power. All three perspectives work together, as well as the knowledge you have from The Handmaid’s Tale, to paint a clear picture of the horrors that exist in Gilead.

Atwood’s writing is phenomenal. I found my breath taken away by quite a lot of her words.

“Where there is an emptiness, the mind will obligingly fill it up. Fear is always at hand to supply any vacancies, as is curiosity. I have had ample experience with both.”

Margaret Atwood

The Testaments is absolutely worth all of the hype that it has been getting. It answered so many of the questions that I had about the different lives of different types of women, other than handmaids, in the society of Gilead. It wove in the novel & some of the main threads from the Hulu show in such a beautiful and thoughtful way. 5/5 stars