This book was not written for me, but instead for a younger (and perhaps more feminine) reader. The Testaments is quite a departure from Handmaid's Tale; more like The Hunger Games, really. On top of that, it's not very good or interesting. What it adds to or expands upon the first book seems needless, generic. The plot and characters land with a the thud of fan-baiting and needless lore. I feel like all the characters are here because of the profits to be had in the "Handmaid's" franchise: a Zoomer character because that's one centroid of the YA audience, who quips artlessly at the Gilead dystopia; the child from the first book because ambiguity and implication are too difficult for internet fandom to tolerate; and a Boomer character allowed to have far more of a in creating a dehumanizing nightmare of a society—while also ACTUALLY also be working to take it apart. (IMO, Lydia doesn't deserve redemption.)