
4 Books to Read In Between Episodes of THE HANDMAID’S TALE

Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao
This book tells the story of Poornima and Savitha, two girls from Indravalli, a small village in India. As girls—poor girls—their fate does not belong to them. Their lives will be decided by men. Arranged marriages, hard labor, abuse. This, they are told, will be their future. In their friendship, Poornima and Savitha find solace and company, but most of all they find courage. Together, they dare to dream, to aspire to a life beyond the confines of their castes and genders. When a brutal act forces the two girls apart, they do everything they can to find their way back to one another. This book tackles big themes: misogyny, human trafficking, prostitution, racism. It is not a novel for the faint of heart—but then again, I’ve never met a woman who fits this description. And at its center is one incandescent theme: the power of female friendship.
The Atwood Connection: Like The Handmaid’s Tale, Girls Burn Brighter is both brutal and illuminating.
The Power by Naomi Alderman
Our world, present day. No one knows how, but women are suddenly able to generate electric shocks from their body. Their skeins (muscles that control their electrostatic powers) can produce anything from a playful sting to a lethal jolt of electricity. An outlandish premise, the stuff of fantasy novels and bizarre dreams. And yet, this book is utterly convincing. Alderman crafts a world that feels not just plausible, but almost probable. It didn’t feel as though I was reading the stories of Roxy, Margot, Allie, and Tunde as they navigated a world disrupted by an upheaval of gender dynamics. It felt like I was living them.
The Atwood Connection: A prediction: you will wish that each and every handmaid living in Gilead would develop this electrifying power.
The Pearl that Broke Its Shell by Nadia Hashimi
Rahima’s life would’ve been different if she had a brother. As it is, she only has sisters—four, to be exact. And with a drug-addicted husband, Rahima’s mother needs the kind of help that only a son—who is allowed the freedom to run errands, attend school, and chaperone her older sisters—can provide. The solution is to adopt the ancient custom of bacha posh, which allows Rahima to dress and act like a boy until she is old enough to get married. Years ago, Rahima’s great-great grandmother, Shekiba, scarred and orphaned, adopts the same custom. This book tells the story of both Rahima and Shekiba: separated by a century, but united by blood, tradition, and a hunger for freedom. It is a beautifully written novel: soaring and sobering.
The Atwood Connection: Like June, Rahima knows what it feels like to have her freedom taken from her, to be rendered powerless—and what it takes to fight back.