Now that I've slept on it I'm more inclined to give this maybe a 3.5? The more I think about it, the more unecessary the book feels. In a way that toy story 4 was completely unnecessary yet entertaining. Never thought I'd make that comparison but welp.

Spoilers ahead I guess.

The ending to handmaid's was the perfect combination of bleak and hopeful. We knew that Gilead would fall, and it's nice to know that it was the women who made this happen, but also aunt Lydia is turned into this problematic character who was cruel but all for and ends justifies the means sort? It doesn't sit right with me. All this book did was tie things with a nice ribbon and say well in the end everything was right. But it ignores so many things raised in the first book. You'd think Atwood would focus more on the environmental aspect considering where we are at in the world right now but it just falls to the wayside despite being something of such importance in the first book. If the book is meant to be grounded in things that could happen (as she states in the acknowledgement is what her one condition is for the Hulu show) then I feel like this is somewhat failing us by being so conclusive.

Gosh maybe after all that I should reduce this to 3 stars but anyway.