2020 Book Review #3: The Testaments

Just finished this sequel....set about  15 years later...to The Handmaid's Tale. I read The Handmaid's Tale in 2014.  You can read my review here.



WOW!!! (and no, I don't subscribe to Hulu so I haven't seen the series)

It's brilliant and the ending is superb.  

STORY SUMMARY

Gilead is still in the throes of the totalitarian society fifteen years after the Handmaid fled the country with her baby.  However, there are beginning signs that the Republic of Gilead is about to lose its grip and it's beginning to rot from within.

The lives of three very different women are about to join together with explosive results.  Two of these young women have grown up on opposite sides of the border of Gilead and Canada:  one known as Agnes who later becomes Aunt Victoria, grows up with Commander Judd and his wife Tabitha in Gilead.  The other girl, a few years younger, grows up in Canada with whom she thinks are her parents:  Melanie and Neil. They call her Daisy and she marches in anti-Gilead protests and watches the horrors of Gilead on the news. After her parents are murdered, her name is switched to Jade.  

These two girls are part of the first generation to come of age in the new  order.....they will share their testimonies....and to them the third voice of a much older Gileadean will be heard.  She is a woman who has been one of the fiercest enforcers of the Gileadean laws.  She is known as Aunt Lydia.  She wields power through her cunning ways and keeps secrets as well as shares secrets. 

Long-buried secrets are what finally bring these three women together within the gates of Gilead. The secrets will force all three of them to really examine who they truly are and how far they will each go for what they believe.

Agnes and Jade will learn just exactly who their birth mother is.  (It's no surprise if you've read The Handmaid's Tale).

They will learn that they share a birth mother!

They will learn just who Baby Nichole is.

and they will learn just how vastly different Aunt Lydia is.....(to me, I was shocked as I didn't see it coming....it's brilliant and it made me change my mind about Lydia and her role.)

And they will finally escape the clutches of Gilead.

but how??

and what will happen with Aunt Lydia??

MY THOUGHTS

This is a gem of a literary work.  

I first read The Handmaid's Tale because our oldest  daughter had to read it for a women's literature class while at Gordon College. It leaves the reader with wanting to know more and so the author finally gave in to readers' requests and wrote this sequel.

It's absolutely brilliant.  

There's some tough language but this book doesn't pretend at all to be Christian so one should not be surprised. You can actually  gloss over some of the "gutter talk".  Don't let the crass words take you away from the story.  Let's face it...most people today do speak this way because they're lazy.  It's sad to me when an author has to use so many F words, etc but it IS how the world talks, unfortunately.  Thankfully, it doesn't matter here because this book is a true marvel.

It was interesting to find out that I was correct in many places in regards to who the birth mother was  (I did have to go back and skim through the Handmaid's Tale to remind my self of certain things regarding her).

I like this book because it gives us a look at the inner workings of Gilead.  It also builds up suspense.

Each section is a different voice. There are the three voices (Each woman). You do have to pay close attention to each testimony as each goes back to the past as well as the present.

The ending is absolutely brilliant...and it ends 70 years after the fall of Gilead. 

 It's just so well done!

I highly recommend this novel if you like deep, literary fiction.

In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 17 and older (due to mature content).

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 10.