I
wasn’t sure what to expect with The Testaments.
What direction would Atwood take the world she had so vividly created in
The Handmaid’s Tale? From almost the
first page, I was sucked into this new story and couldn’t stop reading until it
was complete.
The
story is told from three different viewpoints.
One view point is the diary of Aunt Lydia as she tells of life after the
events of The Handmaid’s Tale, but she also flashes back to how she became Aunt
Lydia. It was fascinating. The second view point was of a young girl named
Daisy who is growing up in Canada is a used clothing store. Her story immediately seemed off to me as she
thought of her parents by their first names and never as her parents. The third view point is of a young girl named
Agnes who is growing up in Gilead with her friend Becka. After Agnes’s mother passes away, she finds
herself adrift in her world searching for meaning. When all three stories collide, the future of
Gilead itself will change.
I
loved the world that Atwood created and continued. I especially loved her characters. Their stories were relatable and unrelatable
living in a world that seems plausible and not that far from our own. The choices they made and the consequences
were riveting to think about. I don’t
want to ruin the plot of this book for others so I will not go into detail. I will say I enjoyed every second of it, especially
the ending.
Favorite
Quotes:
“Only
dead people are allowed to have statues, but I have been given one while still
alive. Already I am petrified.”
“I
imagine you expect nothing but horrors, but the reality is that many children
were loved and cherished, in Gilead as elsewhere, and many adults were kind
through fallible, in Gilead as elsewhere.”
“I
don’t remember that school day much, because why would I? It was normal. Normal is like looking out a car window. Things pass by, this and that and this and
that, without much significance. You don’t
register such hours; they’re habitual, like brushing your teeth.”
“There
was a certain power in it, silence and stillness.”
“Becka
said that spelling was not reading:
reading, she said, was when you could hear the words as if they were a
song.”
“The
aims of Gilead at the outset were pure and noble, we all agree. But they have been subverted and sullied by
he selfish and the power-mad, as so often happens in the course of history.”
Overall,
Atwood achieves the impossible by creating a riveting sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale
that furthered the story while being an unputdownable story of its own.
Book
Source: The Kewaunee Public
Library. Thank-you!
