The Testaments: Book vs. Series
Hulu’s 2026 series The Testaments is adapted from Margaret Atwood’s 2019 novel and continues the screen story begun in The Handmaid’s Tale. Both center on Aunt Lydia, Agnes, and Daisy as secrets inside Gilead begin drawing their lives together.
From Books Adapted
Which books each season covers
The first season covers only part of Atwood’s sequel
The series adapts The Testaments, while continuing the story established by The Handmaid’s Tale series. It does not begin a new adaptation of the first novel.
| Season | Book adapted | How much it covers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Testaments | Part of the novel, expanded and reordered around Agnes’s school years and Daisy’s arrival in Gilead. Its ten episodes do not reach the book’s conclusion. |
| 2* | The Testaments | Announced continuation. The precise stopping point in the book has not been disclosed. |
| A guide, not an exact match: shows move scenes and storylines between books and seasons. | ||
* Season two has been ordered but has not aired.
Much of Agnes’s later story at Ardua Hall and the book’s final operation against Gilead remains unadapted. Bruce Miller described the first season as Agnes beginning to question her world, rather than the completion of her story.
What changed from the book
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Daisy is no longer June’s younger daughter
In Atwood’s book, Daisy is Nichole, the child smuggled out of Gilead, and Agnes is her half-sister. The series separates Daisy from Nichole. June’s younger daughter still exists, but she is not the teenager who enters Gilead with Mayday.
Miller said the change came from bringing Agnes and Daisy together earlier. Their stories in the book span different stages of growing up. Continuing the television timeline also meant Nichole was too young to fill Daisy’s role.
June instead becomes a protective, motherlike figure to Daisy. The series shows their work together near the beginning. In the novel, the girls’ mother is largely absent until the end, even though her influence runs through their stories. Miller said television allowed him to show that outside resistance directly.
About the book and the series
- Author
- Margaret Atwood
- Year
- 2019
- Pages
- 475Buy book
- Audiobook length
- 13 hr 18 minGet audiobook
- Narrator
- Ann Dowd, Bryce Dallas Howard, Mae Whitman, Derek Jacobi, Tantoo Cardinal, Margaret Atwood
- Series
- The Handmaid's Tale, book 2
More than fifteen years after Offred’s story, three women describe life inside and beyond Gilead: powerful Aunt Lydia, sheltered Agnes, and Canadian teenager Daisy. Their accounts begin to converge around secrets capable of damaging the regime, forcing each narrator to decide what she will risk to expose the truth.
- Creator
- Bruce Miller
- Writer
- Bruce Miller
- Year
- 2026
- Episode
- 40 min
- Seasons
- 1
- Episodes
- 10
- Network
- Hulu
- Cast
- Ann Dowd, Chase Infiniti, Lucy Halliday, Mabel Li
- Genre
- Drama, science fiction
- IMDb
- View on IMDb
Years after the events of The Handmaid’s Tale, Agnes prepares for a future prescribed by Gilead while newcomer Daisy enters Aunt Lydia’s school from a very different world. As the two young women are drawn together, Aunt Lydia guards plans and secrets that could reshape all three of their lives.
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