Fictional book review: The Testaments (2019) by Margaret Atwood.

Hi everyone, I hope you are all well. I am back once again to deliver my thoughts on yet another Margaret Atwood novel. This time I decided to dive into Margaret Atwood's The Testaments (2019). After having re-read and reviewed The Handmaid's Tale (1985), I thought it was only right to read the sequel book and review it.

First of all I wanted to say how nervous I was at what was going to happen in this novel. The ending of The Handmaid's Tale left me with fears over what had happened to the protagonist and I had so many unanswered questions. I thought The Testaments would give all these answers and in some way they did. But there were finer details which had not been accounted for, stuff that I could not work out. That is not to say, I did not enjoy the book. Far from it!

I loved The Testaments and there are multiple reasons why. The most important is this gender divide and how things changed in Atwood's dystopia here. In the first book, the men had all the power and fooled the women. Although, in this book, sometimes it was the women who would be demonstrated as being the clever, manipulative ones. I use the adjective manipulative in a positive sense, not a negative sense. The characters in this are far different then what I expected when I was first introduced to them and this power/intelligence that they had was what I think is the main cause of that difference.

As a spoiler (sorry), there is more than one protagonist which allowed the inner thoughts of women to be understood by me as a reader as well as being provided with the opportunity to see it misperceived by other female characters. Even when we know that a female character has good intentions, other female characters are unaware of this and the Gileadean society they live in is responsible for them mistrusting these other female characters. This allows a build up to shock when female characters do fool others; that is something I liked.

The key thing I'm trying to get at is, never make assumptions about the characters and never expect anything, things will change. This novel is full of dynamic and dramatic twists that Margaret Atwood as a writer deploys effectively. This is what makes Atwood an excellent writer. Her stories are always loaded and this one is no exception.

I found The Testaments so engaging and enjoyable, that I struggled to put it down at times. I always wanted to know what was going to happen next and am not surprised that it jointly won the booker prize in 2019 with Bernadine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other (2019). For me, Atwood's clever use of words, her razor-sharp story telling and her fully developed, multi-layered characters mean I am rewarding this book a 10/10. If you want a dystopian book to read, this is the one! But do read The Handmaid's Tale first if you have not because otherwise it will not make sense.


I hope you find something and for now, I will see you later.


Thomas.




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