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The Testaments Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Margaret Atwood (Author, Narrator), Ann Dowd (Narrator), Bryce Dallas Howard (Narrator),

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Winner of the Booker Prize 2019
The British Book Awards Audiobook of the Year 2020

Brought to you by Penguin.

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood is read by Ann Dowd, Bryce Dallas Howard and Mae Whitman with Derek Jacobi, Tantoo Cardinal and Margaret Atwood.

Margaret Atwood’s dystopian masterpiece, The Handmaid’s Tale, is a modern classic. Now she brings the iconic story to a dramatic conclusion in this riveting sequel.

More than 15 years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale, the theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead maintains its grip on power, but there are signs it is beginning to rot from within. At this crucial moment, the lives of three radically different women converge, with potentially explosive results.

Two have grown up as part of the first generation to come of age in the new order. The testimonies of these two young women are joined by a third voice: a woman who wields power through the ruthless accumulation and deployment of secrets.

As Atwood unfolds The Testaments, she opens up the innermost workings of Gilead as each woman is forced to come to terms with who she is, and how far she will go for what she believes.

‘Dear Readers: Everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we’ve been living in.' (Margaret Atwood)

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Product details

Listening Length	13 hours and 18 minutes
Author	Margaret Atwood
Narrator	Margaret Atwood, Ann Dowd, Bryce Dallas Howard, Mae Whitman, Derek Jacobi, Tantoo Cardinal
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com.au Release Date	10 September 2019
Publisher	Penguin Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B07KXZHRBF
Best Sellers Rank	453 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) 5 in Dystopian Science Fiction (Audible Books & Originals) 8 in Dystopian Fiction 36 in Literary Fiction (Audible Books & Originals)

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Top reviews from Australia

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Andie

Finally....

Reviewed in Australia on 11 September 2019

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I read it in a few hours. Who could put it down, after waiting all this time? It was incredibly tense, of course, and at the start it’s jolting to realise whose thoughts you’re hearing. I have always desperately needed to know more about Aunt Lydia, for reasons that say more about me than the book or the author, and it answered that need entirely, on so many levels. The other characters felt less sharply drawn but I assume that is by design. You’re in their minds, experiencing the world inside and outside Gilead, so you’re sharing their level of maturity and understanding, which is terrifying in it’s own way. (Of all the women and girls in Gilead, we’d heard the least from/about the girls being raised in it; the ones with no memory of before.) And as for that world...well, Atwood’s great skill is letting a little detail (the right details) go a very long way in your head, which is where the true horror of Gilead lives. This book gives you a resolution, yes, but it’s chilling how tenuous it seemed, right to the end. I put it down when I was done, but I don’t feel “safe” yet.

7 people found this helpful

Helpful

Still terrific

Reviewed in Australia on 27 September 2019

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Atwood is as sure-footed as ever in this sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale. The conservative theocracy of Gilead is as harsh as ever, but like all totalitarian regimes, is starting to come apart at the seams. It’s helped on its way by the Machiavellian tactics of Aunt Lydia, one of the Founders (and a judge who came from a trailer trash background in her pre-Gilead days) who sardonically relates a good part of the book. Other sections are narrated by a Canadian girl who discovers that she is Baby Nicole, the iconic posterbaby who serves Gilead as a symbol of its fight to survive. She was smuggled out of Gilead and Gilead wants her back. Other sections are narrated by well-brought up Gilead girls destined for early marriage and attempted baby-making. Through them we learn what life is like for women in a theocratic patriarchy where girls cover up lest they inflame male lust (remind you of anything?) and are not taught to read and write because what’s the point? Their poor little female minds couldn’t cope. In preparation for marriage school it’s more fitting that they learn flower arranging. Divorce is illegal, so when a high ranking man feels like a change, wives tend to have accidents and strange fatal illnesses. No, all is not well in God’s chosen country. There’s the odd spot of paedophilia and incest too. Combined with the injunction to be purer than pure it’s no wonder that some girls discover a vocation to become an Aunt. Sadly, they’ll have no children, but mercifully, they won’t have sex. And they’ll get to read and write, and have more power and autonomy than a Wife. Handmaids, of course, are simply necessary sluts in a society with a pathologically low birth rate.

So Lydia gets to work to bring Gilead down. She enjoys subtle jousting with Commander Judd, who is also her ally. She risks her life in working with the Mayday underground resistance (or terrorists, depending on your point of view). Circumstances lead Nicole to voluntarily re-enter Gilead as a plant. It’s dangerous stuff and makes for compelling reading. Lydia’s sections are the most fun to read because she has an Atwoodian sense of humour, prompting the odd laugh out loud chuckle, and is under no illusions about herself. She has done some horrible things to survive but she’s a tough nut. The novel ends with a post-Gilead conference where historians debate the merits and interpretation of historical materials. As they do. This is Atwood at her best and will no doubt grace our screens in due course.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

‘Who are you, my reader? And when are you?'

Reviewed in Australia on 26 October 2019

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'Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps fifty years from now, perhaps never.’

The events of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ are some fifteen or so years in the past. The first generation of females born under the theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead are entering womanhood. Three very different voices will bring us the story of a regime which is beginning to fail. Two of the voices belong to teenagers, the third is that of Aunt Lydia.

‘I record, I record; though to no end, I often fear.’

Present and past are presented. Aunt Lydia writes of her own experiences as the Republic of Gilead was formed:

‘They were reducing us to animals—to penned-up animals—to our animal nature. They were rubbing our noses in that nature. We were to consider ourselves subhuman .’

And of her path to power. Her voice is the clearest.

The two teenagers have different roles to play: one will give us a clear picture of relatively privileged life within the restrictions of the regime; the other will alert us to other possibilities outside. How will Gilead fail?

I have mixed feelings about this novel. I don’t know exactly what I expected, but the more I was drawn into this world and into Aunt Lydia’s machinations the less comfortable I became. Sure, I want the repressive misogynistic world of Gilead to fail. But there is no comfort here. I’m looking for enlightenment. I want an assurance that Ms Atwood can’t give me: that Gilead cannot return. And yes, I realise that my view is coloured by the fact that there are repressive regimes around the world, where the treatment of women is uncomfortably close to Gilead.

It’s worth reading, it just might not take you on the journey you expect.

‘Once a story you’ve regarded as true has turned false, you begin suspecting all stories.’

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

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Kindle Customer

Read it for the story, not for the characters

Reviewed in Australia on 4 October 2019

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It felt like it was written by multiple ghostwriters, mostly 15 year Olds. I couldn't wait for this to end. It just wasn't enough and the characters were weak and not well rounded. It just feel.alike Atwood didn't want to write this (and perhaps didnt?).

3 people found this helpful

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JL nash

Excellent sequel, very surprising

Reviewed in Australia on 15 September 2019

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Omg I can’t put it down. Who would have thought I might be able to relate to the aunts as well as the handmaidens? Wonderful sequel including 3 different main characters, very surprising.

One person found this helpful

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margaret visciglio

An enjoyable and page turning read

Reviewed in Australia on 19 January 2020

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The geological background made for an excellent setting and added credence to an otherwise outlandish tale. The final sequences of the book were page-turning and tense. The central characters were well drawn and the reader cared about their fate. An enjoyable read

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crashtestwoman

Excellent

Reviewed in Australia on 21 September 2019

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For lovers of the Handmaids Tale, this will not disappoint. The only problem I have is it really didn’t explain the fall of Gilead. But excellent writing and throughly enjoyable premise, highly recommend.

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Top reviews from other countries

Benson

Very satisfying follow up

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 September 2019

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Like so many of you, the Handmaid’s Tale came back into my life through the television show which has proved a huge hit in the past few years. Although I will point out that I was very aware of the book having studied it for my English Literature A Level more than 15 years ago.

From that retrospect, the television show is fresher in my mind than the book, yet this follow up is a great companion to both the television show and the book. I thought the narrative style was very gripping with the basic premise that you are jumping between three separate witness accounts throughout the book. As the book progresses, the gaps tighten so the witness accounts are more less bleeding into each other. I would say a very satisfying conclusion is reached.

For anyone worried about reading this book in fear of it foreshadowing things that may come to light in our own society, you should not! This follow up doesn’t correlate so much with society like the first book and television series does, rather it fills in the gaps of what happened to some of the characters and concepts you’ll know from the first book/television series as well as expanding your knowledge of society in Gilead.

Without spoiling any of the plot lines it largely revolves around the aunts so you find out a lot more of their backstory and how their role in Gilead evolves. All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable read and one for anyone who loves the Handmaid’s Tale: book or television show!

201 people found this helpful

Another Amazon Customer

Atwood Sells Out.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 September 2019

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Having loved The Handmaid's Tale since first reading - the exquisite style and subtle construction of a terrible world through flashback and hint and observation and part-revelation - The Testaments proved to be a grave disappointment. The TV series was bad enough with long, pointless shots and the unsubtlety of a third person presentation of events, compared with its sharp first-person precursor. This text is lame, as if Atwood is just giving gratuitous answers to all the questions she'd ever been asked about Gilead and 'what happened next...'

She has succumbed to external pressure in the worst possible way. The prose is dull and lifeless with no linguistic subtleties that Atwood is so very good at. There is no tension as there was in the original text. We do not really care what happens to the characters as we passionately did for Offred. There is no poetry in the writing, no chanting, no description of outlandish ceremonies. The plot-line is baffling and lumbers to its conclusion with no real conviction about itself. The sentences are long and often opened with 'I' - repetitively sometimes. Was this really written by a world-class author? I've taught The Handmaid's Tale for A level - it's a treasure trove of ingenuity. This? Not a patch.

Even the genius of the Symposium at the end of The Handmaid's Tale - that clever, sharp, flick of the authorial wrist to cast doubt and time and perspective on Offred's narrative, that was pastiched by another, so much less proficient version of itself here in The Testaments. What a waste of opportunity to stun the reader by coming up with something equally unexpected as the first symposium - another device that would remind us of Atwood's genius as a writer - not, sadly offered here, just the tired original rehashed.

It is a shame that people cannot accept that a narrative may not have a neat ending and that we may never know what happened to the protagonist. All the unknowns about Gilead that Offred could never have known, that we would never know, have been filled in doggedly, so that no question remains unanswered. It is a shame - the overlay of this dundering elephant of a sequel will linger and spoil the mystery of The Handmaid's Tale. I wish I'd never read it.

164 people found this helpful

J. Joyce

Not believable

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 September 2019

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Spoilers ahead. I enjoyed the book and read it practically in one sitting. But there are a couple of baffling plot points that spoiled it for me. Maybe someone can explain...
#1 What was the point of Aunt Lydia plotting to bring Baby Nicole back to Gilead, only to send her back to Canada with the microdot? Why did she need to expose the girl to such danger, and surely she could have got the microdot into Canada by some other means?
#2 Would exposing the crimes of the Gilead ruling class really be enough to bring the whole society down? In our post truth age, with world leaders literally breaking the law in plain sight on a daily basis, this seems like a far-fetched liberal fantasy.

83 people found this helpful

Kindle Customer

Excellent. Remarkable, Brilliant and a Spellbinding Read....

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 September 2019

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What a story....For all Fans of The Handmaid's Tale......1 of the Best Books I have ever Read
Congratulations Margaret Atwood ..You have 100per cent out done your self in the writing of THE TESTAMENT ..
It was so good I read it twice in succession and will probably (definitely) read it again....For all fans of The Handmaid's Tale...please read this for your self. If like me, you will cry, laugh and hold your breath in parts, as I did...
A truly remarkable and unique way of finding the truth of the story . Thank you Margaret Atwood

62 people found this helpful

Elizabeth McBain

Atwood-lite

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 September 2019

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It was always going to be difficult to reach the same heights as the Handmaid’s Tale.

The only way I can think to describe it is to say the book seemed to me a little as though it had been written by Jessica Fletcher, of Murder She Wrote. Who had been binge watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

56 people found this helpful

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