Recommended Reads

Our Book of the Week is The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood. This novel deals with the themes of feminism and dystopia, so we have put together a list of similar titles we hope you will enjoy.

 

The Testaments

The much-celebrated sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, The Testaments is a fascinating story of resistance in a totalitarian regime. The novel is written as multiple split narratives, each tale intertwining gradually to form a bigger picture of widespread opposition and defiance. The Testaments is a must-read for any dystopian fans, and for anybody desperate to know the future of those living under The Republic of Gilead.

The Water Cure

Sophie Mackintosh’s debut novel takes toxic masculinity literally, imagining a world where men are physically poisonous. The novel is written like a fable, detailing the lives of a family who have chosen to live on an island to escape the threat posed by men. The father of the family, called King by his wife and daughters, claims to be the exception to the rule. But when three male castaways wash up on their shores, the family’s world is changed forever. How can the daughters reconcile their growing feelings for the men with what they have always believed?

Women Talking

Toews’ novel follows a group of women in an isolated religious colony, struggling with reconciling the rules of their faith with the continuous sexual assault they experience at the hands of the colony’s male inhabitants. Based on the accounts of a real Mennonite colony in Bolivia, Toews interrogates male supremacy in a heart-wrenching account which places the lives of real women at its heart.

Pet

Although originally written for young adults, Emezi’s Pet has been acclaimed for its deep symbolism and understanding of ignorance. Jam has grown up believing that no monsters exist in the city of Lucille. But when she meets Pet, a creature who emerges from one of her mother’s paintings and tells her they have come to hunt a monster, Jam must challenge the authority and uncover the truth.

All of these books are available to download from our cloudLibrary here.  All you need is a Westminster library card and if you are not a member, don’t worry,  just click here – it’s completely free to join and use our resources.