The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

This book was, perhaps, the most highly anticipated release of September, 2019 if not the entire year. I am a huge Margaret Atwood fan and so for me, this was the most anticipated release as well.  

This novel is the sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, a dystopian novel that Atwood wrote in the mid-80's and which describes a religious overthrow of the United States government and then subsequent life under the new religious regime. In that regime, women are treated explicitly terribly with women being subjected to ritualized sexual assault by powerful men in the hopes that they get pregnant and with women essentially otherwise being stripped of all economic, political and other rights.  This novel takes place about 15 years after the incidents described in Atwood's previous novel.

In this novel, there are three narrators:  Aunt Lydia, one teen who has grown up in Gilead and one teenager who has grown up in Canada, observing Gilead and experiencing Canada's response to the religious regime to the South. Aunt Lydia's narrative really drives the book and while she's so terrifying still, I was excited about it. She had such a huge and scary roll in the first novel. I loved that I learned her origin story and, on some level, she appealed to the survivor in me (and I think other readers) because she seems to say that we become almost reptilian in our responses to stressful times (hello, flight, freeze or fight anyone?!). I enjoyed Lydia's portions of the novel more than I enjoyed the other girls' parts of the novel - although they were important in driving the novel forward.  I was just more curious about Lydia and what drives her. 

So, it's been widely discussed about how collaboration can and is used in order to make sure that certain groups of people remain oppressed. This collaboration can be intentional - like slavery - or it can be more unconscious.  The Testaments is very strong in showing how different forms of collaboration are used to keep women and girls oppressed - in both Gilead and in Canada (which represents a country governed by the Democratic Process).

I really liked this book.  I intend to read it again in order to appreciate the more nuanced portions of it instead of reading it to experience it.  Totally worth it.