The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

When a sequel is released for an old, classic work, it's always a risky read. It's exciting to see more of the characters and plot points from a book you loved long ago, but there's always the chance that the newer work will lack the same magic of the original. After being dismayed by Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman last month, I was a little nervous to head into The Testaments, Margaret Atwood's sequel to The Handmaid's Tale. I really wanted to give it a shot though, so I started my reading hoping for the best.

The story takes place fifteen years after the events of the first book and is narrated from three alternating perspectives. The first is Aunt Lydia's, the tyrannical leader of the Aunts that ruled over the handmaids with an iron fist from the first book. In her sections, she describes her traumatic past during the coup in which the United States fell and her subsequent rise to leadership within the new government. She also records how she is working within that organization now, which involves a lot of schemes and deceptions. 

The next perspective is that of Agnes, a teenager who has grown up as the daughter of a Commander. She's led a privileged life in comparison to most in Gilead, but things take a turn when her mother dies and her father remarries. Her mother brings in a handmaid in order to have a child of her own, and starts the process of marrying Agnes off, in order to get her out of the house. Agnes does not want to marry a strange, adult man, no matter how high his status might be, so she pursues the only feasible avenue of escape - becoming an Aunt. 

The final perspective is Daisy, a teenager growing up in Canada. All throughout her schooling, she's learned about the terrible conditions in Gilead, and has even participated in protests against their government. While she thinks the plight of the women there is terrible, she only views it from a distance. It has nothing to do with her. However, when her parents are involved in a mysterious and deadly accident, she learns that she has more connections to Gilead than she knew. 

As the novel progresses, all three of these women are drawn together into a dangerous and terrible adventure. They have different motivations for their choices, but each has an important role to play and they must work together to further their own agendas and create a future that they believe in.

I really enjoyed this novel, and I'm surprised that I feel this way, because The Testaments is certainly very different from The Handmaids Tale. While the first book in the series is deliberately vague and mysterious, this one is more of a traditional story. A lot of detailed, specific information about Gilead is explained and the multiple narrators reveal many aspects of the plot to the reader before the characters figure them out themselves. It has a very different feel; there is more action here, it is more predictable, and a more complete story is told by the end of the novel. 

While I understand how this would be a big disappointment to some readers, I didn't mind it. I was engaged in the story the whole time I was reading and thought it was well paced, suspenseful, and exciting. I liked learning more details about Gilead, especially in regards to Aunt Lydia, who I thought was the most complex and interesting character in the book. I love a villain with a tragic backstory, so I really enjoyed her sections. The sections featuring Agnes were great too. I thought it was interesting to see the perspective of someone inside the privileged class who had grown up there. Agnes didn't have memories of a life before in America, so she believed a lot of the religious doctrine used to oppress women there. She has to struggle through those beliefs to make sense of the abuses she sees throughout the story. Daisy was the character I was probably the least interested in, just because she had less to do with Gilead, but I didn't dislike her narration. Overall, this was a good reading experience for me.

I'm sure a lot of people don't like the ending of this novel, but I appreciated it. It wasn't what I was expecting at all - it wasn't a twist ending. In fact, maybe it was the lack of one that I was surprised by. I won't spoil it here, but I did like it (probably more than I should have).

So, it turns out that I didn't have to be nervous at all. I ended up really enjoying this sequel. It definitely felt different than the first and was written in a very different way. I don't think that needs to be a fault in this case, because the resulting novel was still really entertaining for me. It didn't top the original, but it was still a good time. That being said, if you are expecting something as dark, political, and foreboding at The Handmaid's Tale, you might be disappointed here. If you can enjoy this as a different story set in the same world, then you might enjoy it like I did. 

On a side note, with this novel, I have completed all the match ups in my Then Versus Now Challenge!

Challenge Tally

Then vs. Now: 27/27 - Completed!

Total Books Read in 2020: 83