The Testaments: The Sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale

I’ve described our life as peaceful, and to the outward eye it was; but there were inner storms and turmoils that I have since come to learn are not uncommon among those seeking to dedicate themselves to a higher cause.

Something bad, then; something damaging, or something damaged, which might be the same thing.

By this time I was feeling glum, which is one of the effects a birthday can have: you’re expecting a magic transformation but then it doesn’t happen.

but nevertheless I was thrilled to be able to read anything at all.

The truth was that they’d cut Crystal open to get the baby out, and they’d killed her by doing that. It wasn’t something she chose. She hadn’t volunteered to die with noble womanly honour or be a shining example, but nobody mentioned that.

There was an approved list of names, put together by Aunt Lydia and the other senior Aunts. Becka said the names were made from the names of products women had liked once and would be reassured by, but she herself did not know what those products were. Nobody our age knew, she said.

if they lived their lives twice, once in reality and the second time for the photo.

They looked like small insects, black broken insects arranged in lines, like ants.

In my end is my beginning, as someone once said. Who was that? Mary, Queen of Scots, if history does not lie.