#14 in Dystopian
The Testaments
- 502
- Pages
- about 9 h
- Reading time
- NYT bestseller · 14 weeks on the list, peaked at #2
- Booker Prize
- Kurd Lasswitz Award for Best Foreign Work
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Our view
With its spies and secrets, this sequel reads more like an adventure than dystopias usually do, while staying dark and tense. Set fifteen years after the first novel, it is told by three narrators: a figure readers already know, a young woman raised in Gilead and another living in Canada. It is best read after the first book, and at around five hundred pages it asks for some commitment.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Testaments is a 2019 novel by Margaret Atwood. It is the sequel to The Handmaid's Tale (1985). The novel is set 15 years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale. It is narrated by Aunt Lydia, a character from the previous novel; Agnes Jemima, a young woman living in Gilead; and Daisy, a young woman living in Canada.
Reading order · The Handmaid's Tale
Full order & progress →- The Handmaid's TaleStart here
8.28.2 / 10 - The TestamentsThis book
8.18.1 / 10
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.1 across 797 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 84% of the weight and the score stays at 8.1 — the Dystopian average of 7.7 barely moves it. A further +0.10 comes from the small bonus for major awards.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.5 | 12 | 2% |
| Hardcover | 8.1 | 785 | 99% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Testaments?
It has 502 pages — longer than 87% of the ranked books in Dystopian.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Dystopian — with scores between 7.9 and 8.2, closest to this book.
