10 Books To Read After Watching “The Handmaid’s Tale"

If you’ve already binged watched the first three episodes of Hulu’s adaptation of ​The Handmaid’s Tale, and the wait for the next episode has sent you into a spiral of withdrawals, then in the words of it’s author, Margaret Atwood, “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.” 

On Wednesday, April 26th, Hulu aired the first three episodes of their highly anticipated, dystopian series. The premise of the story, imagines America in which Christian fundamentalists have staged a coup in the wake of the declining birthrates. This replacement of American democracy ushers in a repressive theocratic regime called the Republic of Gilead. The new government enslaves fertile women to become “handmaids,” assigned to bear children for wealthy and powerful men and their barren wives. The main character, Offred, is sent to live in sexual servitude with Commander Fred Waterford and his wife, Serena Joy. Offred reveals through flashbacks what the bygone days were like before the Republic of Gilead was established, and reminisces over her husband and loving daughter.  

Atwood’s novel, and the Hulu miniseries adaption revel in not just feminist ideologies, but humanitarian principals as well. It is a story about the ways in which one group of women are oppressed in a society run by the benefit of the patriarchy, while another group of women take advantage of the situation to ally themselves with male power for personal gain. Drawing on that theme, the titles below will keep you out of a slump once you’re finished watching every last second of ​The Handmaid’s Tale. ​​

#10: When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

If you get your kicks from retellings of fairytales or literary classics, Hillary Jordan’s When She Woke is right up your alley. The story is a revamped dystopian version of Nathanial Hawthorne’s The Scarlett Letter, detailing the terrifying future if we used the Ten Commandments as a legal code, while also losing all sense of Christian humility. When Jordan’s heroine, Hannah, finds that her adulterous affair with the nation’s most celebrated pastor leads her to an unwanted pregnancy, she breaks the nation’s most sacred law and seeks a back-alley abortion. However, when she gets caught and refuses to give up the name of her lover or the doctor who performed the procedure to the authorities, Hannah loses everything. In this newly developed government, Christians have done away with capital punishment, and long prison sentences have been replaced by “chroming” in which criminals are injected with a virus that turns their skin a color that represents what crimes they have committed. After Hannah is released from her month of solitary confinement, she becomes visible for her crimes, when the authorities dye her skin a bright red. While Jordan’s novel sounds like another unsubtle excoriation of American Christianity, ​When She Woke holds many questioning layers of prison reform, conservative church vs. conservative state, and judging someone (quite literary) by the color of their skin. 

#9: Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Sex! Lies! And sister wives? In Lauren DeStefano’s debut novel, Wither, genetic engineering leads to the creation of perfect children, however no one suspects the long-term effects until from the second generation onward, children who were born seemingly healthy and strong start dying at the ages of 20 and 25. In a desperate attempt to save the human race from extinction, the rich and privileged, kidnap young girls and sell them into polygamous marriages in the hopes that the babies conceived to such unions will give them time to discovering a cure. When sixteen-year-old Rhine ends up as one of these kidnapped victims along with two other girls, she finds herself bought and shuffled off to a new life as one of the Governor’s pampered wives. However, Rhine quickly comes to grips with the reality of her situation. The Governor’s first wife – and childhood sweetheart – has hit the fatal age of 20 and is dying. Rhine, with her heterochromatic eyes is intended to take her place as the Governor’s first wife. Along with Jenna, a girl who is vocal about her hatred to the world they’ve entered, and Cecily, a thirteen-year-old orphan who is too overly excited to be one of the Governor’s wives. Despite being imprisoned within the Governor’s house, Rhine’s predicament becomes even more complicated when she begins a forbidden relationship with one of the Governor’s servants named Gabriel. Wither is the first book in DeStefano’s The Chemical Garden Trilogy. 

#8: Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill

Delving into the concept of how we treat women in our day-to-day lives, Louise O’Neill’s harrowing novel, Only Ever Yours takes a magnifying glass and amplifies the misogynistic attitudes of how women are objectified. Set in a dystopian world where baby girls are no longer born naturally, genetically engineered women have been created who are able to conceive only male children. However, these engineered women are seen as state property and are therefore of extremely low status. Men view these women as second-class citizens, so much so that no one even gives them the courtesy of providing them with capital letters at the start of their names. By the age of sixteen, these girls are sent to an institution called “School” where the lessons include Beauty Therapy and Comparison Studies. The ultimate goal for every girl in the School is to be chosen as a companion (a wife). However, the unchosen girls get left behind as concubines or teachers, because they have been deemed unable to please a man. Worse, because of the limited spaces available to find a companion, the girls are set against one another and tear each other apart. For best friends freida and isabel, they are certain to be chosen as companions until isabel starts to put on some pounds – a quality that is frowned upon at the School. The characters are subjected to more extreme version of the pressures women face everyday. They are encouraged to starve themselves, always act happy-go-lucky and forbid tears in the presence of men. O’Neill dark version of female suppression forces readers to take a long hard look at our own society, and recognize the possibility that fiction might actually be on the brink to fact. 

#7: The Jewel by Amy Ewing

The Jewel is the first book from The Lone City series by Amy Ewing. A tense tale about Violet Lasting’s life after she gets auctioned off as surrogate mother. Violet’s job is to carry the child of the woman who buys her, until she realizes that the true purchaser is the Duchess of the Lake, one of the four founding families of the city called The Jewel. The Duchess of the Lake begins to pamper and punish Violet, eager to implant a child within her that will win the ruling Electress and Exeter’s favor. Violet was born with a certain gene and the special power of Augury (transformative magic) that makes the royals of the land take more notice of her. However, Violet soon discovers how dangerous it is to be a surrogate for the aristocratic circle of The Jewel as she tries to hold on to her identity and sanity under the watchful eyes of the Duchess. Then she meets Ash, the hired companion for the Duchess’s niece. Together, they come to realize the scale of the treachery that The Jewel holds, as well as becoming the others endangerment.   

#6: Bumped by Megan McCafferty

Yes, another dystopian title, but with teen pregnancies. Are you starting to sense a theme here? A virus has come along, making people over the age of 18 sterile. Teenagers and pre-teens are encouraged to by society to “bump” as early as possible. In this universe, boys and girls are bound by contracts, rewarded with luxury, and are paid in six figure advances for their offspring. Melody gets adopted by a pair of aspiring professors and must fulfill her contract by finding a suitable match that is compatible with her genetic desirability. Then there’s Harmony, Melody’s identical twin sister. The two girls were separated at birth, and unlike Melody who has an agent scouting out the perfect companion for her, Harmony is taken in by a small religious community called Goodside. When Harmony discovers that she has a missing twin, she immediately leaves Goodside to find her. However, Harmony’s presence might screw up Melody’s chance of a secure and successful future. 

#5: Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Written in 1915, Herland is the first book in the Gilman’s feminist utopian trilogy. The story describes a society cut off from civilization composed entirely of women, who’ve learned how to reproduced via asexual reproduction, and who are free from wars, conflicts and dominations. That is, until three men learn about this all-female society and try to take it over. Little do they know, that the women of Herland are not only self-sufficient, but are also capable of doing “men’s work.” Each of the men draw their own stereotypes on the women. Jeff regards women as thing to be served and protected. Terry views the women as prized possessions to be conquered and won. And unlike his two companions, Van tries to understand the principles on which Herland is built. Gilman’s argument for gender equality is thought-provoking and asks its readers to recognize that women are just as valuable and intelligent as men. 

#4: Daughters of the North by Sarah Hall

Think of this novel as a reversed version of ​The Handmaid’s Tale. Instead of women living in a repressive theocratic regime forced into involuntary breeding due to declined birthrates; Daughters of the North takes place in post-apocalyptic England where only those selected in a lottery are allowed to become pregnant. Every other women of childbearing age is forced to be fitted for an IUD or to be sterilized to avoid overpopulation. The main character, Sister, escapes from her zone after being traumatized by her procedure, and finds herself in the female utopia of Carhullan. However, while Carhullan is a sanctuary for women, Sister begins to realize that the place she has fled too is not so dissimilar from the cruel society that she left behind. 

#3: The Glass Arrow by Kristen Simmons

Featuring a dystopian society where a caste system reduces women to become enslaved, Aya becomes captured after living and surviving in the wilderness. She is sold to a facility called “The Garden” where women are housed and sold for breeding rights. When Aya is sold to the wealthy Mayor Rykor, she begins to plan her escape, all the while striking up an unexpected friendship with the mayor’s son. 

#2: Children of Men by PD James

The world in Children of Men has been plagued by infertility. After the planet’s youngest person dies, hope becomes diminished for future generations. The race to find a scientific cure has bred distrust between nations, leaving England to be cut off from the rest of the world under a dictatorship. Told in his diary entires, the novel focuses on Theo Faron, a 50-year-old Oxford man and cousin to the Warden of England. He’s one day approached by a young woman asking him to meet a group known as Five Fishes. The group’s aim is to erase human rights abuses and restore a democratic government. But Theo has his own demons to be burden with, and is uninterested in the Five Fishes morals. That is, until he and a group of rebels discover a life-changing secret – a pregnant women. Theo later learns that while some fight to keep her identity under wraps, other have much more sinister intentions. 

#1: The Core of the Sun by Johanna Sinisalo

In this Finnish modern classic, there are two types of women: the “eloi” and the “morlocks.” The elois are bred and taught to be the ideal housewife and mother, while the morlocks – smarter but unfeminine – are banned from having children. Vanna is a young woman who looks and acts like an eloi but is secretly a morlock. When she gets separated from her eloi sister, Vanna must keep her secret as a morlock from the authorities, or risk getting sterilized. That is, if her chili pepper addiction doesn’t kill her first. 

Happy Readings!!!