The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

From the Publisher: The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners-a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life-has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God's Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible. Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers. Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move, but they can't stay locked away. By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful, and uneasily hilarious, The Year of the Flood is Atwood at her most brilliant and inventive.

I'm not sure which I enjoyed more, ‘Oryx and Crake' or this book, but I definitely suggest that you read ‘Oryx and Crake' first and then follow it up with ‘The Year of the Flood.' They are both excellent dystopian novels.

I wasn't one of those that was disappointed by the way ‘Oryx and Crake' ended, but that may have been because unlike those who read it when it was first published, I knew that there was a companion novel. At any rate, I highly recommend both novels to anyone who is a fan of Atwood, or dystopian novels in general.

A wonderful read once again. I was a bit thrown off by the start. Just as I was suprised find out about this book existing as part of a trilogy, I was surprised to find the story revolving around other main characters than the first book.

For all the prose and poetry I reward it 4 out of 5

Oryx and Crake was a long prologue. This is the actual story. The interlocking plots are fun, even if they get pretty coincidental at times. And as always I love Atwood's paranoia and concise prose. Plus Toby is my hero and Zeb is a dreamboat.

A sect living on a rooftop garden. Violence and decadence on the streets. Gene spliced animals and plants. This is the grim future in Margaret Atwood???s ???The Year of the Flood???.
The book jumps backwards and forwards in time, some chapters cover the years leading up to ???The Dry Flood??? while others follow the few survivors in the months after.

I find that I have a love/hate relationship with this book, which is why it has taken me so long to write the review. The writing is excellent, the worlds well thought through, the characters believable, and still I couldn???t really enjoy it until the end. I have an aversion to sects of any kind, even ???nice??? groups like the one portrayed in this story. At first I found it confusing because a chapter describes Year 1 which I assumed to be Year 1 after The Flood. It took me several chapters to work out that it was actually Year 1 of the Sect and that the Flood didn???t happen until Year 25. Over the course of the 25 years not much seemed to happen, we had descriptions of everyday life and of how the main protagonists came to be there (and then left again) but not much else. The pace was too slow to hold my interest so I kept putting it down and reading something else. It wasn???t until the last few chapters that the pace picked up again and I became immersed in the story.
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Although well thought through, the story was just too slow for my taste. However, the premise is interesting enough to make me want to read the previous book in the trilogy ???Oryx and Crake???. This may make me want revise my opinion of ???The Year of the Flood???.