OCTOBER 2019 - AudioFile
Bear witness to the secretive lives of Gilead’s women 15 years after THE HANDMAID’S TALE’s conclusion. Narrator Ann Dowd, known for her role on the television adaptation, is formidable as Aunt Lydia. Hearing her resonant narration of diary entries allows listeners to feel the horror of early Gilead, be disturbed by the aunt’s complicity, and discover her secrets. Bryce Dallas Howard’s sweet narration of the Transcript of Witness Testimony 369A provides a window onto the extreme restrictions of girlhood in Gilead. Mae Whitman’s snarky rendition of Witness 369B’s testimony reflects a privileged youth in Canada, where she unwittingly triggers dramatic changes. Listening adds an entirely new dimension to a riveting tale. Atwood narrates section headings and her note, and Tantoo Cardinal and Derek Jacobi nail the scholarly conclusion. E.E.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2019 Best Audiobook, 2020 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
★ 09/16/2019
Atwood's confident, magnetic sequel to The Handmaid's Tale details the beginning of the end for Gilead, the authoritarian religion-touting dystopia where fertile single women (handmaids) live in sexual servitude. The novel opens in New England 15 years after the first novel ends. Aunt Lydia has become a renowned educator, an ally of Gilead's spy chief, and an archivist for Gilead's secrets. Ensconced in her library, Aunt Lydia recalls how she went from prisoner to collaborator during Gilead's early days. Now she is old and dying and ready for revenge. Her plan involves two teenagers. Gilead native Agnes Jemima is almost 13 when she learns her real mother was a runaway handmaid. Rather than marry, Agnes Jemima becomes an aunt-in-training. Sixteen-year-old Daisy in Toronto discovers she is the daughter of a runaway handmaid after the people she thought were her parents die in an explosion. Aunt Lydia brings the girls together under her tutelage, then sends them off to try to escape with Gilead's secrets. Since publication, The Handmaid's Tale has appeared as a movie, graphic novel, and popular miniseries. 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. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
A chilling invitation no Atwood fan can resist . . . The Testaments reminds us of the power of truth in the face of evil.”
—People
“Margaret Atwood’s powers are on full display . . . Everyone should read The Testaments.”
—Los Angeles Times
“A fast, immersive narrative that’s as propulsive as it is melodramatic.”
—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“The Testaments is worthy of the literary classic it continues. That’s thanks in part to Atwood’s capacity to surprise, even writing in a universe we think we know so well.”
—USA Today
“The women of Gilead are more fascinating than ever.”
—NPR
“There may be no novelist better suited to tapping the current era’s anxieties than Margaret Atwood.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“Powerful, revealing, and engaging.”
—Boston Globe
“A rare treat . . . a corker of a plot, culminating in a breathless flight to freedom.”
—Laura Miller, Slate.com
Library Journal - Audio
★ 11/01/2019
Thirty-four years ago, Atwood astounded readers with Offred's gripping, claustrophobic perspective of life in Gilead, the totalitarian theocracy which was formerly the United States. In her new novel, set 15 years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale, she employs three female characters to present a broader, but equally gripping, view of this twisted, fertility-centered dystopia. Ann Dowd is spellbinding as the voice of Aunt Lydia, the same character she portrays on Hulu's adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale. The deliberate pace at which she relates Aunt Lydia's diary entries builds incredible suspense; listeners slowly come to see a full portrait of arguably the most powerful woman in Gilead, a woman whose inner thoughts were mostly unknowable from Offred's outside perspective. Bryce Dallas Howard is charming as Agnes, whose extremely restricted life as a young girl from a privileged Gileadean household is described in Transcript of Witness Testimony 369A. Transcript of Witness Testimony 369B, spunkily relayed by Mae Whitman, describes the life of Daisy, a Canadian teenager living with curiously overprotective parents who run a secondhand clothing store and have ties to Mayday, the resistance group trying to overthrow Gilead. The multi-voiced narration is a perfect match for the story: listeners will be absolutely captivated by the alternating, extraordinarily different lives depicted in the three "testaments" and, by the time the characters bravely unite near the novel's climax, listeners will likely wish to play the recording at double speed. VERDICT In addition to the fact that current events have inspired women at protest marches to don Handmaids' costumes and carry signs that say "Make Margaret Atwood fiction again," this sublime novel and audio experience belongs in all collections.—Beth Farrell, Cleveland State Univ. Law Lib.
Library Journal
04/01/2019
Whatever happened to Offred after the close of Atwood's iconic The Handmaid's Tale? In this talk-of-the-town sequel, we find out. Taking place 15 years later, the narrative is shaped by the testaments of three female narrators from Gilead.
Kirkus Reviews
2019-09-04
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid's Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America's current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it's not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There's Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid's Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the 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.
