If you liked
Books like The Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood
The Handmaid's Tale is Margaret Atwood's 1985 dystopia that reads more clearly every year. Gilead, the handmaid Offred, the slow construction of a near-future America in which patriarchy has been formalized into theology. If you finished it and needed another book that took political fiction this seriously, these are our picks.
The shortlist
What to read next
Never Let Me Goby Kazuo Ishiguro
“Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro 2005 review. Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, a special English boarding school. As adults, they begin to understand what Hailsham was for. The novel that defined the contemporary literary-SF register.”
Klara and the Sunby Kazuo Ishiguro
“Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro 2021 review. Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, watches the children passing by the storefront and waits to be chosen. Late-career Ishiguro at his most patient and most strange.”
Belovedby Toni Morrison
“Beloved by Toni Morrison 1987 review. Sethe, a former slave living in Reconstruction-era Ohio, is haunted by the daughter she killed to save from slavery. Pulitzer Prize 1988 and one of the canonical American novels of the late twentieth century.”
American Godsby Neil Gaiman
“American Gods by Neil Gaiman 2001 review. An ex-convict named Shadow takes a job as bodyguard to a strange man named Wednesday and learns the old gods of immigration are still here, dying slow. The defining American urban fantasy of the 2000s.”
The Fifth Seasonby N. K. Jemisin
“The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin 2015 review. On a continent where seismic activity defines life, three women's stories converge as a fifth season begins. Hugo Best Novel 2016, the first volume of the Broken Earth trilogy, and the most important fantasy debut of the 2010s.”
Jamesby Percival Everett
“James by Percival Everett 2024 review. A retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of the enslaved man Jim, in his own voice. The most important American novel of 2024 and the right Everett entry point.”
FAQ
Common questions about The Handmaid's Tale read-alikes
- What is the closest match for The Handmaid's Tale?
- Never Let Me Go. Same speculative scaffolding used to do realistic political work. Atwood writes louder than Ishiguro but the structural move is the same: a near-future premise that lets the novel say what realist fiction is supposed to be too polite to say.
- Should I read The Testaments next?
- Yes. The Testaments (2019) is Atwood's late-career sequel and the Booker co-winner of that year. It is not reviewed here yet but it answers the open questions the first book deliberately left open.
- I want more Margaret Atwood.
- Oryx and Crake (2003, the MaddAddam trilogy opener), Cat's Eye (1988), and the Stone Mattress short stories are the canonical Atwood follow-ups. None are reviewed here yet.
- I want more political dystopia.
- The Fifth Season (N. K. Jemisin) is the structural masterwork. James is the historical-American version. Beloved does the same political work in a literary-realist register.
The original