Summary and Reviews of The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

Media Reviews

Publishers Weekly (starred review) Atwood does not dwell on the franchise or current politics. Instead, she explores favorite themes of sisterhood, options for the disempowered, and freedom's irresistible draw. Atwood's eminently rewarding sequel revels in the energy of youth, the shrewdness of old age, and the vulnerabilities of repressive regimes.

Slate ... All of this and a corker of a plot, culminating in a breathless flight to freedom, makes The Testaments a rare treat. The Handmaid's Tale, while magnificent, was never that. But—let's not kid ourselves—that's because, of the two novels, it is the least reassuring, the least flattering, and, sadly, the most true.

New York Times In both The Handmaid's Tale (the novel) and The Testaments, Atwood wisely focuses less on the viciousness of the Gilead regime (though there is one harrowing and effective sequence about its use of emotional manipulation to win over early converts to its cause), and more on how temperament and past experiences shape individual characters' very different responses to these dire circumstances.

The Washington Post The Testaments opens in Gilead about 15 years after The Handmaid's Tale, but it's an entirely different novel in form and tone. Inevitably, the details are less shocking ... Atwood responds to the challenge of that familiarity by giving us the narrator we least expect: Aunt Lydia. It's a brilliant strategic move that turns the world of Gilead inside out... But Aunt Lydia is not the only narrator of The Testaments. Interlaced among her journal entries are the testimonies of two young women: one raised in Gilead, the other in Canada. Their mysterious identities fuel much of the story's suspense — and electrify the novel with an extra dose of melodrama.

Kirkus Reviews [T]he more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller. Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.

The Guardian (UK) Atwood's task in returning to the world of her best-known work was a big one, but the result is a success that more than justifies her Booker prize shortlisting.

The Independent (UK) Would The Testaments work as a standalone novel? Yes, although it wouldn't be feted in the manner of the original. Details of the horrors of Gilead unfolded slowly in The Handmaid's Tale, with its ambiguous ending; The Testaments can feel clunkily expositional and overly neat by contrast, explaining rather than suggesting. ... But as a reading experience it's also surprisingly fun, with its plucky young heroines and juicy (if predictable) plot twists. I was gripped and gobbled it up – and not just because of the time pressures of that broken embargo.

BBC (UK) The horrors and repressions of Gilead, so shocking on first encounter, so convincingly realised, are here repeated. If you've seen one ululating birth, one man torn apart by Handmaids, you've seen them all. Atwood's prose is as powerful as ever, tense and spare. She invests certain phrases with ironic fury: adulteress, precious flower, Certificate of Whiteness, fanatics, defiled. Her word games are ingenious. She forces you to think about language and how it can be made to lie. The plot is propulsive and I finished in six hours flat. But if The Handmaid's Tale was Atwood's mistresspiece, The Testaments is a misstep. The Handmaid's Tale ended on a note of interrogation: "Are there any questions?" Those questions were better left unanswered.

Reader Reviews

Lorraine D
Atwood has done it again!
If you liked The Handmaid's Tales, you will speed through Testaments. The chapters are short and pass the story back and forth between Aunt Lydia and the girls. Some of the description is more painful than Handmaid's Tales if you can imagine that. ...   Read More

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