The Testaments (The Handmaid's Tale, #2)

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

Marvelous!!!

The story is told from the POV of three women.

Aunt Lydia was a judge in the world before Gilead. She lived through the brutal reprogramming of women to become one of the most powerful Aunts. But she never forgot what was done to her or her promise to herself to get even one day. Puppet master extraordinaire she will pull the stings that will bring Gilead crashing down.

Baby Nicole/Daisy/Jade the daughter Offred smuggled out of Gilead to Canada, she grew up believing that her parents were the couple that ran an used clothing store until the day they were killed by a car bomb. Learning her true identity she returned to Gilead to meet the sister she didn't know she had and to smuggle important documents out of Gilead that would bring it crashing down.

Agnes/Aunt Victoria she would grow up the pampered daughter of Commander Kyle and Tabitha but when Tabitha dies of a mysterious illness and her "Father" weds Paula her status quickly changes. To escape Paula's scheme to marry her to Commander Judd ( a man old enough to be her Grandfather and whose wives all mysteriously die after a short time) she follows her friend Becka/Aunt Immortelle's lead and ask to become an Aunt. Granted asylum with the Aunts, she quickly learns long buried secrets. Thanks to Becca's sacrifice Agnes and Jade will be able to escape to Canada with the documents Aunt Lydia assembled over years and bring Gilead down.

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Book Club Questions
1. Clothes play a dual role in the novel. They signal life stages as well as status and class: the pink, white and plum dresses worn by “special girls”; the drab prison-like stripes of the Econofamilies; and the green dresses of the betrothed girls. Did this aspect of the novel strike you as odd?
 Not really
Or is it actually not very different from our own obsession with brands and logos that convey a certain level of wealth and status?
It reminded me more of the Middle Ages when only royalty was allowed to wear certain colors and clothing often denoted your status in the community.Today you can choose to wear a brand or logo or not, then society dictated what you wore. 

2. Aunt Lydia tells us that Gilead actually has “an embarrassingly high emigration rate.” Can those who manage to leave Gilead ever truly “escape”?
I think it would be hard to escape the brainwashing 

3. Daisy/Jade is, to say the least, a reluctant revolutionary. But if you were her age and were asked to absorb all of the shocking information she has to process in a very short period of time, would you have reacted any differently?
Probably not, she had a comfortable life and then all of a sudden she doesn't and she is being asked to risk her life for people she doesn't know and for a cause that has to seem remote to her.

4. After Agnes is assaulted, she recalls other girls who reported such incidents having been told that “nice girls did not notice the minor antics of men, they simply looked the other way,” which is a troubling parallel between Gilead and reality. Do you think there will ever come a time when women will feel unashamed to peak out when they are sexually assaulted? Or has this time already arrived in the age of #MeToo?
I think women feel more empowered to speak out today, but it's still sort of a he said she said type deal. And the woman/girl isn't always telling the truth so sometimes it's hard to know who to believe. 

5. When Aunt Lydia dons the garb of the female stadium shooters, she says, “I felt a chill. I put it on. What else should I have done?” What would you have done?
It's hard to say, it was really the only way she had to survive. And she never really gave up, just played the game until she could destroy Gilead from within. I don't know what I would have done I think nobody could know until they were in the same situation. 

6. Agnes’ interpretation of “Dick and Jane” showcases Margaret Atwood’s trademark wit, but there is more to it than that. Discuss the ways in which the author cleverly builds the sense of suspicion and fear that informs the way Agnes processes the events in her life at Ardua Hall.

7. Several references are made to shortages of basic necessities such as food and electricity. Birth defects and juvenile cancer also seem to plague Gilead. What do you think has caused this? Possibly environmental issues? Or the ongoing war?
I think it's a combination of environmental issues and the fact that Gilead is cut off to some extent from the rest of the world. 

8. Agnes considers her admittance to Hildegard Library to be a “golden key” that will reveal “the riches that lay within.” But it is here that she learns the truth about the Concubine Cut into Twelve Pieces, as well as the truth about her half-sister. Is there any book that provided you with a similar pivotal and eye-opening experience?

9. When Aunt Lydia relays the Aesop’s Fables story of Fox and Cat, she reveals much about her survival skills. Which are you --- Fox or Cat?

10. The conclusion of THE HANDMAID’S TALE left readers with many tantalizing questions. Which of your questions were answered by THE TESTAMENTS? Which were not?