The Testaments (The Handmaid's Tale, #2)

by Margaret Atwood

All the little pretend books on the shelves were blank. I asked why there was nothing inside them—I had a dim feeling that there were supposed to be marks on those pages—and my mother said that books were decorations, like vases of flowers.

“She doesn’t give a fuck.” “Nobody is any authority on the fucks other people give,” said Ada.

They would get hold of me somehow and drag me into Gilead, where the women might as well be house cats and everyone was a religious maniac.

“Penises,” I said thoughtfully. “Them again.” In attempted suicides of young girls, this is often the case.

LOLZ

“Yes, the thought-experiment penises can get out of control,” I said. “They take on a life of their own.” I paused; Aunt Lise fidgeted.

She was a damaged houseplant, but cared for properly she would bloom.