Review: The Testaments

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5 stars. This was this year's dystopian novel selection for book club and though it wasn't that long ago that we read "The Handmaid's Tale," it was long enough I didn't remember how it ended.

The alternating voices of narration annoyed the hell out of me at first because I had no idea who these narrators were or why I was supposed to care about them. I generally don't read what a book is about in-depth before I start to read it, but in this case, refreshing my memory as to how "The Handmaid's Tale" ended and reading the synopsis of this book did help me to start to enjoy it more - especially after I figured out who Agnes really was before it was revealed.

The story does tie up "The Handmaid's Tale" nicely with the history of Gilead came to be and how the various roles of the women were established, primarily the aunts. There were aspects of the story, however, I thought were happening simultaneously so it was a bit jarring to me to learn they were happening at different points in time (particularly Agnes's path to becoming an aunt and Jade's infiltration of Gilead). I also thought the symposium at the end of the book would have made more sense at the beginning but that's just a matter of preference.

Good book overall, but one it took me longer than I would have liked to get into.

View all my reviews