Blessed be the series ;)

 (**CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR BOTH THE TV SERIES & THE ORIGINAL BOOKS**) 

The sixth and final season of "The Handmaid's Tale" reached its conclusion earlier this week. I've spent a lot of time since then browsing related posts and comments on social media (I'm clearly a glutton for punishment!  lol)  -- and I have some thoughts...! 

• Several of my predictions for the last few episodes of the season were right! 
• ...But not all of them. The finale was much lower-key than I had anticipated, and a lot more people survived than I anticipated. Which is not a bad thing (especially if you're trying to make viewers happy!), if not entirely realistic.
• Janine not only being freed but also getting Charlotte/Angela back was one of those things I didn't think was entirely realistic, particularly in the way it unfolded (so abrupt, no explanation??) -- but it certainly made people happy. As many commenters said, if anyone in the series deserved a happy ending, it was Janine! 
• I saw Alexis Bledel (Emily) listed in the credits for this episode in advance, but I thought  she would show up in a flashback. So I was genuinely and pleasantly surprised when she actually did show up!  
• A lot of commenters felt Serena Joy got off lightly, and many were not happy that June forgave her. There were also a lot of predictions of a future romance with Mark Tuello, the American rebellion leader (!).    
• While I loved Aunt Lydia's rant from the scaffold in episode 9 -- and it clearly shows her evolving into the person she becomes in "The Testaments" -- I'm not entirely clear how she'll get away with that and still maintain a powerful position in Gilead (as depicted in the book, anyway)?  
• A LOT of fans were LIVID that Nick got killed off at the end of episode 9!!  I saw more than one wishful suggestion that Nick (and sometimes Commander Lawrence) somehow survived the explosion -- he parachuted out of the plane!! Or it was all a dream!! (a la Pam Ewing and Bobby in the shower on "Dallas," many moons ago, lol).  
• Many saw Nick as a romantic hero and felt he'd been unfairly portrayed in the final season.
• Others pointed out that Nick/Nicole's father is part of "The Testaments" (albeit just a small part), so how could they kill him off?  (I would say that's Hollywood/showbiz...!)   
• Personally, I always thought of Nick as an ambiguous character. His allegiances in the first book are unclear -- when he nods to June at the very end of "The Handmaid's Tale" (the book -- also the ending of the first season of the TV show), indicating she should get into the van, she doesn't know whether the van is taking her to freedom or to punishment. In the second book, we don't hear much about him, only that he is indeed with Mayday -- but his role is not quite so clear in the TV series. He does co-operate with Mayday, and what's left of the American government, but seems increasingly reluctant to do so, and (with a wife, a powerful father-in-law, and a baby on the way) increasingly enmeshed in the life and leadership of Gilead. 
• Some pointed out that he had plenty of opportunities to escape Gilead (having helped June go back and forth across the border multiple times) and join June and their daughter in Canada or in Alaska -- but he remained in Gilead. 
• Some people were mad that June didn't wind up with Luke either (!), and the ambiguous nature of their parting. I didn't get the feeling that they were splitting for good, more like they were taking a break while they continued their work with the resistance (and continued the search for Hannah). However their marriage evolves, they seemed to be in a good place as friends and co-parents, which was nice to see.   
• Of course, it's "The HANDMAID's Tale" -- it's not "Twilight" or "The Hunger Games" (Team Luke or Team Nick), as one disgruntled commenter put it (lol). The book and the show are not about romance and not about the men.  Essentially, both are about women -- one woman in particular -- and their fight to survive in a brutal patriarchal system. 
• The takeaway message, I think, came in a conversation June had with her mother, Holly, midway through the finale, explaining her decision to leave her daughter (again) and continue the fight:  

“But the thing is, mom, I’m not safe. And neither are you. And they’re never going to stop coming for us. And even when we’re gone, they are going to come for our children…and our grandchildren. Fighting might not get us everything, but we don’t have a choice. Because not fighting is what got us Gilead in the first place. And Gilead doesn’t need to be beaten — it needs to be broken.” 

(Anyone paying attention??)  

• I was bemused by the number of people insisting that, in "The Testaments" (the book), Nicole and Hannah are reunited, not only with their mother but with their fathers (and therefore Nick should not have been killed off). 
• Okay, it's been a while (almost 6 years!) since I read the book, but I had absolutely NO  memory of the fathers showing up. I don't have time to re-read that book right now, and I gave my paper copy to the thrift store, but I did a search of my e-book for the word "father" -- and while there are references to both girls' fathers, I found no father-daughter reunion scenes. 
• I commented to that effect on a few social media comments -- and got thoroughly taken to task.  Which reminded me why I usually don't comment on public posts...! 
• Several people pointed me to a dedication ceremony at the very end of the book as evidence of a reunion. I went back to my ebook and looked it up, and yes, the sisters' mother AND fathers are mentioned in the wording of a plaque, which is cited by the speaker at a symposium, years into the future, as evidence that the two girls were reunited with their parents (and also went on to have children and grandchildren). But unlike their mother, the fathers never actually make an appearance in the story.  (I did NOT go back to argue that point, though!)  
• Many people were upset that there was no June-Hannah reunion (which would have been the traditional Hollywood happy ending, of course). I saw several comments along the lines of "Wasn't getting Hannah back the whole point of the show??:  Others begged for a season 7, with a mother-daughter reunion.
• They obviously haven't read the books  or any of the publicity about the upcoming sequel series, "The Testaments" (no one who has was expecting a reunion) -- in fact, many admitted they had no idea there's a sequel book, or a sequel show in the works.  
• I mean, I know I'm retired, I have more free time to read & follow things than some people do -- but you're a fan of the show!! you're on social media!! -- how can you not know?? 
• Also, Gilead being Gilead, you had to know that happy endings are far and few between...! and that some questions will never have answers...    
• A lot of people were also demanding to know what happened to Esther (played by Mckenna Grace -- not a character from the novel), last seen at the end of season 5, pregnant and shackled to a hospital bed. She did not reappear this season. 
• I noticed a LOT of references to mothers, children and the maternal relationship, in the finale -- and in the series generally.  
• I wasn't the only one who noticed!  I got a chuckle out of this review from Den of Geek.  The header reads (in part):  "This show grants itself a valedictory tour built around a heavily insisted-upon message that the children are our future."  Relevant excerpt:  

Nothing in the finale mattered so much as its heavily insisted-upon message, which was all about parents fighting to create a better world to keep their children safe. June readied herself to leave little Holly again, bolstered by Emily’s assurance that it didn’t mean she was abandoning her family. Luke planned to reach Hannah by liberating one state from Gilead at a time. Naomi Lawrence returned little Charlotte to her mother to keep her out of a warzone. Even Mark Tuello was conjured up an off-screen son to motivate his military moves.

By the time Holly Sr had declaimed over not being able to keep June safe, and Serena had promised to dedicate herself solely to the raising of her precious baby Noah, it was hard not to feel a little Gilead propaganda going on in terms of children being the only reason that anybody does anything. I don’t recall that being the point Margaret Atwood was making back in 1985. 

 

[Note from Loribeth:  Touchez!]

• I wasn't sure why June returned to the Waterfords' house (what was left of it) at the end... I thought that perhaps, when she went into her old room, she'd look in the closet and see "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum" (the ersatz-Latin phrase for "Don't let the bastards grind you down"), carved in the wall by the Waterfords' original Handmaid (who killed herself).  
• She did not do that. 
• But it all made sense when she pulled out a tape recorder (although, really, she just happened to have one in her bag??) and started speaking the words that open Margaret Atwood's original novel.  (Both her mother & Luke encouraged her, in previous scenes, to write a book about her experiences in Gilead.)  
• Several people pointed out that the first episode of season one ends with June speaking the same words in voiceover... and that you can actually hear the "click" of the tape recorder being turned on. (Elisabeth Moss, who plays June, says she went back to that episode to make sure she matched the tone and pace of that speech as closely as possible for the finale.)  Which brings the series full circle, and also brings it back to the novel.  Perfect.  
• June/The Handmaid's first words in the book (the beginning of the speech which ends the show):  "A chair. A table. A lamp." But did anyone notice that Serena's final (or near-final?) words in the show echo this?  "A chair, a table, a bed -- that's all you need, I guess." (And her son, of course...!) 

What did you think?  

"Anne of Windy Poplars" by L.M. Montgomery (re-read)

My L.M. Montgomery Readathon Facebook group just finished reading "Anne of Windy Poplars" by L.M. Montgomery together (we started on Jan. 15th). The book is called "Anne of Windy Willows" in the U.K., with some text variations (which we explored during our group read, and which were fascinating to learn about).  I originally read this one years ago as a kid in the early 1970s, when I was exploring the "Anne" books for the first time, and revisited it for the first time in many years back in December 2023 (review here). 

Chronologically, this is #5 in the "Anne of Green Gables" series -- although it was written much later than most of the other books (in 1936), in response to readers' (and Montgomery's publishers') demands for "more Anne." Storywise, it fills in the three-year gap between Anne's graduation from college ("Anne of the Island," 1915) and her marriage to Gilbert Blythe ("Anne's House of Dreams," 1917). 

In this book, Gilbert is away at medical school, while Anne becomes principal of the high school in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, where she finds a new home as a boarder at Windy Poplars with "the widows" -- "Aunt Kate" and "Aunt Chatty" -- and their feisty housekeeper, Rebecca Dew.  She makes new friends -- and enemies (the entire Pringle clan) -- and describes her adventures in chatty, detailed letters to Gilbert. 

"Windy Poplars" is generally regarded as a lesser entry in the Anne series -- and some of the material in it is, admittedly, "filler," and derivative of character types and vignettes from previous Anne books. But (as usual with LMM) the characters are amusing and well drawn, and some of the episodes are truly funny. (Among my favourites: dinner at Tomgallon House with a hostess who regales Anne non-stop with luridly hilarious tales of her family curse and its victims.)  And I found myself misty-eyed at the end, as Anne says goodbye to Windy Poplars and this in-between time in her life, and receives a memorable send-off from Rebecca Dew.  

My original rating of 4 stars still stand. 

Sadly, this may be our last Readathon book, after five years of great Montgomery reading and conversation. It began as a diversion in the early days of the pandemic, and has continued far longer than the original organizers envisioned.  Our group keader, a Montgomery scholar, has other projects to pursue, and I'm sure this has consumed an enormous amount of her time, even with assistance from volunteers. It's unclear whether anyone else is going to pick up the reins to continue the group.  At any rate, I've hugely enjoyed taking part, chatting with and learning from other Montgomery fans, and I'm going to miss it, if this is indeed the end!   

This was Book #16 read to date in 2025 (and Book #3 finished in May), bringing me to 36% of my 2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 2 books behind  schedule to meet my goal.  :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2025 tagged as "2025 books." 

"A Burning" by Megha Majumdar

"A Burning" by Megha Majumdar is the June selection for my Childless Collective Nomo Book Club. Our main character is Jivan, an ambitious Muslim girl from an urban Indian slum who lives with her parents and works in a clothing store. At the train station one day, she witnesses a terrorist firebomb attack, in which 100 people die. A provocative, anti-government comment about the event on Facebook brings the authorities to her door:  she is dragged off to jail and accused of carrying out the attack herself.  

Two other characters' lives intertwine with Jivan's -- and with her fate -- in ways that become clearer as the story unfolds:  PT Sir, a phys ed teacher at a girls' school, who becomes involved in local politics, and Lovely, a hijra (a trans person who plays a spiritual role in Indian culture), who has been taking English lessons from Jivan and aspires to be an actress. 

I don't want to give away any more than that. 

This is not a book I would likely have picked up on my own. It's a short (a little more than 200 pages), and fast read, narrated in turn by Jivan, Lovely and PT Sir. It's very well written. It keeps you turning the pages, and it packs a powerful punch, especially near the end. 

I appreciated its merits. But I can't say I loved it. 

As a result, I struggled with how to rate this one. I settled on 3.5 stars on StoryGraph, rounded down to 3 on Goodreads. 

This was Book #15 read to date in 2025 (and Book #2 finished in May), bringing me to 33% of my 2025 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 3 books behind  schedule to meet my goal.  :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2025 tagged as "2025 books." 

#MicroblogMondays: It's all a matter of perspective...!

I was scanning today's bargains on the Kobo (e-reading) website, and my eye caught the title of one of the books listed.  

It was titled "Infant Loss Quick & Easy."  

What the what?? 

Then I took another look... here's the book cover: 

Only someone who's endured pregnancy or infant loss would have had the reaction I did, right? (It's not the first time I've done a double-take on a book title, albeit not always from a loss/infertility/childless perspective...!).  Have you ever done something like this??  (Please tell me you have! lol)  

(It did give me something to write about for #MM today, though...!  lol)  

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

#MicroblogMondays: We are amused :)

It's our Victoria Day long weekend here, and we've been doing... absolutely nothing.  

It's been peaceful.

It's been lovely. :) 

As I noted last year around this time:  

  

...the constant stream of emails flowing into my inbox and notifications popping up on my cellphone have slowed to a trickle. My social media feeds haven't been as busy either. I've caught up on reading my emails as well as the latest chapters of my Cromwell Trilogy slow readalong, finished one book and started another.  I even balanced my chequebook yesterday!  (lol)  

I'm enjoying it while it lasts...!  ;) 

Similarly -- even with messages from U.S. friends and sites  (where their May long weekend is still to come...!) still flowing onto my screens -- my email inbox and social media feeds have been quieter than usual.  I was able to catch up on my online reading, as well as on my latest Footnotes & Tangents slow read, and start a new read too (an upcoming book selection).  I had just two Zoom sessions scheduled all weekend (there are often a lot more), skipped one and enjoyed the other.  We watched a lot of NHL Stanley Cup playoffs hockey -- sadly, both my Winnipeg Jets and dh's Toronto Maple Leafs were eliminated -- as well as the last two episodes of "Miss Austen" on PBS last night. The weather has been a little colder/more rainy than we'd like (but it's better than heat & humidity!), and I was able to wipe down the balcony furniture and railings so they're ready to enjoy.  We saw some traditional neighbourhood fireworks from our windows last night (and will likely see some more tonight). 

It's a little busier today. Government offices are closed, but a lot of stores are open, so dh went out to do his usual Monday morning supermarket run. 

Of course, we would have liked to see the nephews & niblings (so would their parents/grandparents!) -- we haven't seen the two LGNephews since Easter -- but apparently they were all busy. So the weekend was entirely ours. We did get to see LGNiece at her grandparents' house on Friday for a few hours -- we went for a walk with her & SIL, and then played in the back yard while BIL grilled hot dogs for us for lunch.  

I'm looking forward to a repeat of (at least some of) the same peace & quiet this coming weekend, when the U.S. has its Memorial Day long weekend.  :)  

You can find all my previous Victoria Day-related posts here. 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

#MicroblogMondays: Annoying things & small pleasures

(It's been a while since I did one of these... always easy to put together in a pinch, and I had NO idea what to write for #MM today...!)  

Annoying things: 

• Voldemort Day (i.e., yesterday). Enough said.  ;)  
• That said -- it wasn't too bad, compared to some years. Dh took me out for brunch -- on Friday, much less crowded!  -- and I spent a lot of the day online. I co-hosted a childless community text chat for an hour, and spent some time chatting there myself before and after my shift.  And then watched "Miss Austen" on PBS later that evening. 
• We emptied and cleaned out the humidifier, thinking we wouldn't need it any more, now that nicer weather is here (if not the summer humidity)(yet...!)... but it's been awfully dry in here. I wake up feeling like my eyelids are glued to my eyeballs -- I'm going through eye drops like crazy -- and I have to keep putting on hand lotion, because the backs of my hands are so itchy. Sigh.... 
• I accidentally dropped a picture frame on our coffee table while dusting, and it left a small gouge.  Likewise, our dining table has a lot of small, fine scratches on it. Dh scolds me for fretting about stuff like this -- they're 9 years old!  they've been well used!  scratches and dents are going to happen!  But it makes me sad. (Also, we paid a lot of money for this stuff! Sigh...)  
• Our personal banker called us on Friday, when we were out, and we didn't get his message until later in the day. So I called him back this morning -- which went to voice mail -- and left a message, including our home phone/landline number and also my cellphone number.  He called again a few hours later -- but he called dh's cellphone. (Which he also had on file, but still...!) WTF??  I know he enjoys talking to dh when we go there to see him -- both finance guys, both Italian -- but seriously??  Needless to say, I was not amused.
• I'm behind on my Goodreads reading goal for the year.  :( 

Small pleasures: 

• It's been nice enough outside to have the balcony door open all day, most days. Yay!! 
• It's been staying lighter outside for longer again.  :)  
• I'm noticing more sunsets again!  Yes, I know, the sun sets every night ;)  but it seems to be more noticeable (and prettier!) from spring through fall.  
• Buying cute outfits for the great-niblings. :)  
• Getting out new (renewed) passports! (I got mine almost two weeks ago and dh's FINALLY arrived today. Not sure why his took so long;  I sent them in the same package.)  

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

Voldemort Day odds & ends

It's been a while, and a pile of odds & ends have been accumulating in my drafts folder!  

• There was an extensive article in the Toronto Star recently on communal living -- a subject of interest for many CNBCers (especially those without partners) -- with a particular focus on the "Golden Girls" model, profiling four senior women living together in London (Ontario).  It discusses the pros & cons of such arrangements, and the move to enact legislation to support them. 
• I was tickled that the article actually mentions that "By 2036, nearly a quarter of Canadians are expected to be 65 or older. Many do not have children to support them in their senior years..." 
• Within that article, there's a link to another story from a few weeks ago that I hadn't seen, about a new documentary about solo aging. (The video is embedded in the story.) There are also links to some resources, including a mention of Ageing Without Children in the UK! 
• I haven't watched the documentary yet, and I don't know if it's viewable outside Canada, but here's a link to the story, fyi. (For some reason, gift links were not offered?? -- hopefully this will work regardless...)  
• Also from the Toronto Star: the stuff of nightmares for fertility patients: "Disturbing errors at Ontario fertility clinics destroy couples’ baby dreams years after province abandoned oversight plans." 
• Sample quote:  "...the person cleaning your teeth or giving you a massage is more highly regulated than the person looking after your embryos."
• Not a new subject, but well written: from Life Without Children, Nadia Huq observes "If I Was in a Hollywood Movie, I’d Be Dead." (Subhead: "Where are the happy endings for single women without kids?")   

Suddenly, everyone is talking about pronatalism (and pushing back on it too)(albeit not necessarily from a childless perspective). Just a couple of relevant articles: 

• From the New York Times: "White House Assesses Ways to Persuade Women to Have More Children." (Pronatalism much?) 
• Beware the comments:  the ones I scanned contained a lot of childless/free-bashing by parents (and vice versa). Not good. :( 
• An excellent piece on this topic from Jill Filipovic (unfortunately, I think it's paywalled for subscribers). "Yes, America Should Make It Easier to Have Children." 
• The kicker is in the subhead:  "But the Trump administration doesn't want to help families. It wants to punish single women and childless people."  Yup. 
• Also related (and very much worth reading -- with an irresistible headline to boot...!), from Jessica Valenti at Abortion Every Day: "Bro-Natalists Are Ruining America." 
• Also related, from the Washington Post:  "You can’t bribe and shame your way to more babies." (Gift link.) 

And, a few for Voldemort Day (my pet name -- i.e., "The Day That Shall Not Be Named," lol):  

• Lisa Sibbett at The Auntie Bulletin and Ryan Rose Weaver of InTending talk about THAT day (both video & transcript available):  "There's No Card for This." Well worth a read!  
• From Y.L. Wolfe at On the Outside:  "A Tribute to the Childless Women Who Feel Invisible on Mother's Day." (Subhead:  "Your feelings and experiences matter, too.")  
• Mild rant:  I was at the bookstore recently and picked up a new title by Uzma Jalaluddin, with the promising title of "Detective Aunty." Always happy to see books about aunties! :)  
• Nevertheless -- while the cover description asks "who better to pry answers from unwilling suspects than a meddlesome aunty?" the title character, in fact, is not an "aunty" but a mother and grandmother, whose daughter is accused of murder. Maybe I'm missing something here, but why then isn't the title "Detective Grandma"??  
• And -- like mothers proclaiming themselves "childless" when they've dropped the kids off at Grandma's for the weekend, or "childless cat ladies" just because they own a cat and their kids are now all at college, why must mothers appropriate yet another title that doesn't quite describe their personal situation?? (I recognize that one can be a mother/grandmother AND an auntie, but still...!) 
• (I may still read the book, but still...!)  
• If you are interested in current events & U.S. politics with a historical perspective, Heather Cox Richardson's Substack, "Letters from an American" is an absolute must-read that I cannot recommend highly enough. On weekends, however, she often switches gears and posts about something else, sometimes just a gorgeous scenic photo. 
• Last night (in advance of That Day), she wrote about an older childfree friend who's influenced her life. It's a delight. :) May we all have a Mrs. A., in our life, and perhaps be that Mrs. A. for someone else!  
• This was written before Easter, not today -- and it has absolutely nothing to do with childlessness, pregnancy loss or infertility -- but it sure made me laugh!  Connie Schulz is such a fabulous writer!  If, like me, you grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, you will certainly enjoy "For Easter: A Tribute to Mom's Beehives." :)