The Year of the Flood

I wish I hadn't let so much time pass between reading Oryx and Crake and this one; I had forgotten a lot, though thankfully, since this book and that one were supposed to take place simultaneously, the worlds started to overlap towards the end. I won't make the same mistake with the third book in the trilogy.

Man, Margaret Atwood knows how to paint a bleak picture, but it's still fascinating enough that you have to stop and stare. Like a train wreck.

It's really hard to define what this book is about. It's supposed to be after a biblical Flood-style event, but most of the narrative centers on the God's Gardeners cult pre-Flood and the individuals living within it. And like a lot happens, but it's kind of just life and not the whole point?

In the remainder of the narrative, the Waterless Flood has happened, humans are extinct mostly (in Oryx and Crake, a new breed of humans has been genetically created to replace humans, just as - in both books - various species of animals have been spliced together to create new animal species since so many original species have become extinct). And the remainder of the people on earth are either bad guys (Painballers) or former God's Gardeners or the new humans? Plus Ren's might-be-insane ex-boyfriend who calls himself Snowman and is a friend of all the new humans (who call themselves Crakers)?

I'm not really sure where this is going. Probably nowhere good.

This review is mainly just so I don't forget stuff before I get to the next book. I should have written something down after the first book; I remember really liking it but I don't remember why, and I have a vague notion that Year of the Flood was better, but I still didn't love it enough to give it five stars.