The Handmaid's Tale (THT) was a disturbing yet engaging read for me. I give it 4 stars because it really made me think about some relevant issues today, but it took me about 100 pages to get hooked into the characters and the plot. THT was published in 1985 but gained in popularity with the 2017 Hulu series. It is set in a dystopian society and tells of a religious group known as Gilead that takes over the United States government after the birth rate plummets. Gilead is a patriarchal society that controls all life particularly the lives of women through draconian laws.
The Testaments is the follow up novel published in 2019 and set 15 years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale. It follows the lives of three women connected to characters from The Handmaid's Tale. I give it a 3 out of 5 because it was interesting, but not as much action as the first book.