The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam Trilogy, #2) by Margaret Atwood

Feb 23, 2012 Paquita Maria Sanchez rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature

Throughout my adult life, every time I've set to fretting about something, if I have ever been composed of the proper combination of melancholy, apathy, and bitters to warrant the interest of my hovering mother, in a state of exasperation she always runs a line on me about perspective, about humbling myself by pondering the countless masses of people in the world who have it so much worse than me; that I should always feel grateful, and that thinking otherwise is simply being small-minded and se...more Throughout my adult life, every time I've set to fretting about something, if I have ever been composed of the proper combination of melancholy, apathy, and bitters to warrant the interest of my hovering mother, in a state of exasperation she always runs a line on me about perspective, about humbling myself by pondering the countless masses of people in the world who have it so much worse than me; that I should always feel grateful, and that thinking otherwise is simply being small-minded and self-obsessed. Though I agree with her in spirit, I am prone to try and win an argument for the sake of it (bad habit?), and always retort with something along the lines of "yes, let us follow that logic to its conclusion: there is only one, most saddest little person who has it the worst of all in the whole wide world throughout all of time, and only he or she is deserving of coming face-to-face with his or her reality, and finding it regrettable and sadness-worthy." This is, of course, not what she meant, but the conversation (which we have had a zillion times over the years, and which always concludes with two sets of hands in the air) always leaves me thinking about what that actual, worst-case-scenario could be. I think I have cracked it, folks: it is being a female in a post-apocalyptic scenario.

Of course, everyone has it rough when left to fight for basic survival in a wasteland after being pampered and defeated by the tough-loving arms of a convenience-based, desire-inventing, force-feeding, complex society for all of their lives. Well, most everyone. Though I make fun of them for their extreme lifestyles today, some of my old buddies who turned to some mutation of a freegan, survivalist mentality and started living in improvised homes in various woodland areas would be the first people I would actively seek out if the shit really went down and I had somehow managed to survive the initial death-move. You know, the folks who actually know how to build a fire with sticks and leaves, and can tell you which berries and mushrooms are poisonous rather than edible? "Hey, guys. It's been awhile. Sorry I cracked all those 'hippie militia' jokes about you. Heh."

Not fun for anyone, that whole "End of the World' thing, but man does having ladybits ever make shit worse. Not only are you shake-down-able, potentially threatening, and edible to the surviving crazies with nothing left to lose and absolutely no laws or fearful penalties or even mores governing their actions whatsoever, you are also, ummm, do I use a euphemism here? You're fuckable. Forcibly. As are men, naturally, but the threat to females is more visceral as the gender unfortunately oft-considered to be inferior, subservient, weaker, breakable, etc, particularly in the already deteriorated, woman-munching dystopia presented here before the mass deaths begin. I do not scoff at the plot twist in 28 Days Later, I find it probable. I don't judge the Man's wife in The Road for her decision to wander out into the snowstorm, I sympathize with her. The women in The Year of the Flood have it so much worse, too. Though there are elements of survival-y empowered female inspiration here, they are gratuitously punctuated by personal violations which would send a shiver down von Trier's spine.

Even with gender aside, one of the recurrent nightmare themes in post-apocalyptic tales is that every human being you encounter you must fear, though your initial response may be "A human! To survive with! To communicate with! Shit, I'll even talk to him about football if it means I get to use my vocal chords!" This is ill-advised. Approach with caution. And a gun if you have one, because for some reason these post-apocalyptic tales seem to consistently contain the obstacle of a severe shortage of guns considering the limited number of surviving humans, which is unfathomable to me as an American who has spent the majority of her life in Oklahoma and Texas. In this novel, of course, that is covered by the fact that the Totalitarian Corporate Regime in thinly-veiled control of society has done massive sweeps and disarmed almost all of its citizenry decades before "The Year of the Flood", The Flood being the genetically-engineered global pandemic which is the foundation of this story.

Sorry, I keep deviating from the trail, here. Being a woman on a decimated planet sucks, and that fact is one of the more glaring themes of this, the second book in what is to become Atwood's "MaddAddam Trilogy." To highlight this point, the story is told primarily from the perspective of two female survivors, women who had seen firsthand some of the scariest sides of power mixed with violence mixed with sexuality even before the world completely fell apart. I won't even go into why the human race was for the most part forcibly brought to extinction, as this is covered in the first novel, Oryx and Crake, told through the eyes of one of the main male characters who believes himself to be the remaining human on the ruins of this planet, and relates the tale of how he came to be so through a series of flashbacks. Let's just say that the fact that the girl you love and pay to bang has started banging your hotter, more sexually experienced, alcoholic "bad-boy" friend without making him pay for it may not be the best reason to...lash out on others, and...you're an asshole, Gene or Crake or whatever the fu...uh, yeah, that book's pretty good too, so you should just read it.

Themes also addressed in both novels are the rape of the earth by technological advancement, disregard of various animal species and the almost sexualized desire for massive quantities of their flesh as meals and fancy clothes to the point of wiping them out completely and destroying their habitats (even the strippers and prostitutes in the novel wear bird, lizard, and other animal costumes as a rule, just for one example), the potential threats and miracles behind gene-splicing and other scientific attempts to 'play god', the role (or lack thereof) of spirituality in rising above ravenous earthly desires, and the overwhelming and ever-increasing threat that is the governing powers of large corporations. It's the whole "Is the human race a parasite the earth will one day cure itself of? Should some human come around and maybe help the earth along in that regard?" argument. As this novel is what Atwood refers to as "speculative fiction" rather than some completely improbable sci-fi scenario, her hand offers up a light pat rather than a shove; she seems less preachy, and more questioning. Ever the Justitia, she asks rather than says, speculates rather than feigning the prophet, weighs it all in the scales while leaving each side swinging up, down, up, down like the ticking of a pendulum. This is one of the things that I particularly love about Atwood.

There is a final installment which as of now has no release date. The first two have ended--as installments are wont to do--with cliffhangers. I guess what I am feeling right now is the same thing that made me have to work until 4am at my old bookstore job just so those asshole kids could get their Harry Potter books the very second they came out. I feel almost as impatient for the next book as I do for the next season of Dexter. Damn you authors of serialized things and their shocking, open-ended finales! Also, good job!(less)

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Jul 03, 2012 Jeffrey Keeten rated it 4 of 5 stars

"Glenn (Crake) used to say the reason you can't really imagine yourself being dead was that as soon as you say, "I'll be dead," you've said the word I, and so you're still alive inside the sentence. And that's how people got the idea of the immortality of the soul--it was a consequence of grammar. And so was God, because as soon as there's a past tense, there has to be a past before the past, and you keep going back in time until you get to I don't know; and that's what God is."

Animals have evap...more

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Jan 27, 2012 Tanu rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: coming-off-age, cultural, dysoptia, emotional-drama, excellent-prose, really-good, favorite-protagonist, serious-literature, social-issues, well-developed-plot, all-time-favorite

I feel like I got hit by a car, got rolled over by a truck and then got dumped from an airplane.

And, then I feel sad that it’s over.

That is what Margaret Atwood does.

Every line you read feels like a whiplash and still you want to continue reading. You want to finish the book in one day, but the themes make you stop and think about it. She conveys such hard hitting messages through such simple words that it never fails to astonish you. She will have you mentally flinching all through the book, bu...more

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Oct 18, 2010 smetchie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: deprived-me-of-sleep, bbc-ideas, favorites

**update**
YOU DO NOT HAVE TO READ ORYX AND CRAKE FIRST. The Year of the Flood is not a sequel even though goodreads lists it as Maddadam trilogy #2. It's more like a completely different story about the same event. There is hardly any character crossover and absolutely zero information in Oryx and Crake that you need to love/enjoy/understand The Year of the Flood.

I love that this story just dumps me off in the future. Lots of things aren’t explained. It’s written as if I already know what a "vi...more

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Jan 08, 2010 Kemper rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: apocalypse-now, sci-fi, modern-lit, playing-god

I’m really tempted to take a cheap shot at Margaret Atwood and call her the George Lucas of literature since I was very disappointed in this follow-up to Oryx & Crake.

She built an intriguing world in O&C where corporations ruled and profited through genetic engineering and gene splicing animals in a way that would give Dr. Moreau some ethical concerns. And she tied that to the devastating story of how it ended along with the tale of Jimmy (Snowman), his mad scientist friend Crake, and th...more I’m really tempted to take a cheap shot at Margaret Atwood and call her the George Lucas of literature since I was very disappointed in this follow-up to Oryx & Crake.

She built an intriguing world in O&C where corporations ruled and profited through genetic engineering and gene splicing animals in a way that would give Dr. Moreau some ethical concerns. And she tied that to the devastating story of how it ended along with the tale of Jimmy (Snowman), his mad scientist friend Crake, and the woman they both loved, Oryx.

The Year of the Flood centers around two women, Ren and Toby, through the course of their lives before, during and after the disaster that occurs in O&C. Tobey has been victimized by bad luck and a vicious man to end up having to hide with the God’s Gardener’s. Ren’s mother fell for one of the Gardeners and left her husband, taking Ren from the cushy corporate compound they had been living.

God’s Gardeners are a green religious group led by Adam One. By taking animal rights to a peaceful extreme and tying it to Christianity, they’ve attracted a small following despite the consumerist culture around them. Adam One preaches about the Waterless Flood, a disaster that will pay back humankind for all the injustices done to the animal kingdom, and those who have read Oryx & Crake know that Reckonin’ Day is coming.

Ren is eventually returned to the corporate compound life, but never forgets her time with GG or her best friend, Amanda. Tobey is surprised to find herself becoming one of the respected senior members of the GG as time passes. Neither woman knows it, but they keep brushing up against the events and people who will eventually cause the Flood. Especially Ren who’s first real boyfriend, Jimmy from O&C, breaks her heart and leaves her pining for him for the rest of the book.

I was really looking forward to reading more about this culture that Atwood had described in Oryx and Crake, especially since the first book centered on the ‘elite’ types who work and live in the corporate compounds, and this was more about the rest of the people trying to live in a world turned into a biological and ecological madhouse. But after reading it, I really don’t see what the point was.

Oryx and Crake did just fine as a standalone book. Giving me another version of events from an outsider’s perspective really didn’t add anything to it. More, since I knew how it was going to end, I wasn’t nearly as involved in this story as I was O&C. Plus, while O&C ended on an ambiguous note, Year of the Flood gives us resolution to that book, only to introduce a new ambiguous ending. Also, there are far too many coincidences to be remotely plausible about survivors who knew each other before the Flood constantly running into each other after the big disaster. It’s less of an apocalypse and more like a class reunion.

I haven’t been this disappointed since Jar Jar Binks showed up. And I’m worried that Atwood will be releasing Special Digitally Enhanced Versions of Oryx & Crake and The Year of the Flood very soon.

I probably shouldn’t be this hard on a book that had some great writing, but I really liked Oryx and Crake so reading this one left me feeling like I got a plate of reheated leftovers and it’s making me bitter.

(I have no idea if Atwood plans to do any more books related to this story, so if she releases some kind of brilliant third book that ties all of this together and enhances the overall story, I reserve the right to change my mind about this one.)

And on a humorous side note, I listened to the audio book version of this, and the song lyrics included by Atwood as part of Adam One’s sermons have been turned into some horrible post-modern Christian rock tunes. It made Creed sound good.
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May 01, 2010 Tatiana rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: fans of "Oryx and Crake"

Shelves: 2010, dystopias-post-apocalyptic

The Year of the Flood is a companion novel (or, as I've seen it sometimes called sidequel) to Oryx and Crake. While the book is inferior to its predecessor IMO, it is still a remarkable work of speculative fiction.

Set at approximately the same time as Oryx and Crake,The Year of the Flood follows the fates of two female survivors of the Waterless Flood - an epidemic orchestrated by Crake. Ren is a trapeze dancer at a sex club locked in its quarantine room and Toby is barricaded in a spa stocked w...more The Year of the Flood is a companion novel (or, as I've seen it sometimes called sidequel) to Oryx and Crake. While the book is inferior to its predecessor IMO, it is still a remarkable work of speculative fiction.

Set at approximately the same time as Oryx and Crake,The Year of the Flood follows the fates of two female survivors of the Waterless Flood - an epidemic orchestrated by Crake. Ren is a trapeze dancer at a sex club locked in its quarantine room and Toby is barricaded in a spa stocked with many edible treatments. Both women have once belonged to the cult of the God's Gardeners - a religion, organic vegetarian in nature, which is devoted to the preservation of all plant and animal life. In many ways thanks to this affiliation Ren and Toby are able to survive the Flood.

Just like in Oryx and Crake, Atwood takes us through the life stories of her characters, constantly switching from one perspective to another, from past to present, gradually revealing the events that have led to the Flood. This time not from the perspective of Snowman/Jimmy, a close friend of Crake's, but from the POV of ordinary people living in pleeblands. What is memorable about this sidequel is the skill with which Atwood brings the characters familiar to us from Oryx and Crake into the story. We get a glimpse at them from a different angle and learn how the God's Gardeners' teachings might have affected Crake's final idea of perfect humans, how the epidemic was spread, etc. The characters' live stories are intertwined in a very intricate way.

What makes this companion inferior to its predecessor is probably the familiarity of the world and the events. The ideas of chaotic gene-splicing, creation of supreme beings, and annihilation of humanity are no longer new or shocking. Instead, Atwood concentrates on exploring the possible avenues religious thought can take under the circumstances, relationships between women (as usual, Atwood's view of men is very unflattering), vegetarianism (some disturbing meat imagery here). Somehow it all makes the book a little duller, less intense than Oryx and Crake.

The ending in Atwood's signature way is very open. What is the fate of humanity? What is in store for the Crakers? Did Crake's plan to establish a new better civilization even work?
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Aug 07, 2010 Jennifer (aka EM) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: eco-terrorists, doomsday theorists, vegetarians, rooftop gardeners

Shelves: canlit

**a few hours later**

In light of Jason pointing out some glaring inconsistencies in my Atwood ratings, and upon further reflection (like this stuff matters): I'm going to drop O&C to a low 4 and raise this one to a mid- to high 4. The reality is that, compared to lots of other stuff, they should both probably be 5, but we are hardest on those we love best.

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It might be my current state of mind; it might be that I read this too close to Oryx Crake; or because...more

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Jul 11, 2011 Jamie rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Atwood fans, dystopia lovers, anyone in need of a smart and compelling read

Shelves: read-in-2009, read-in-2011

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I’ll confess up front that I don’t often have the opportunity to read contemporary fiction; or in any case, I’m always a few years behind. Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood, for example, was the only book I read in 2009 that was actually published in 2009 (and I should say that I finished the novel about an hour after midnight on New Year’s Eve—or Day, rather, at that point—as I sipped the dregs of my celebratory champagne). The novel was the latest on my kick of trying to work through eve...more

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Sep 25, 2012 Ted rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: lit-canadian, global-warming, sci-fi

This work isn't perfect, there are the odd little details here and there which don't ring true, etc etc. I noted such things once and awhile as I read, but they didn't bother me much. The story is such a page-turner, that it's easy to overlook the minor flaws I thought were present.

The book enlarges the vision begun in Oryx and Crake. I don't think one would need to read that first, but why wouldn't you? True, I did think this book was better than the first - there are more characters in Flood t...more

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Feb 17, 2012 Jeniffer Almonte rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, reviewed

Certainly an extraordinary book....

I've always been very hostile to science fiction so it's hard for me to believe that I read and so much enjoyed "The Year of the Flood". I guess part of the reason I avoid books like this one is because I don't like "message" books about dystopian societies. I read literature for good writing and good characters, so I don't like when an author is intent on revealing some "truth"--I guess I find that heavy-handed and not interesting.

Okay, so this is a message bo...more Certainly an extraordinary book....

I've always been very hostile to science fiction so it's hard for me to believe that I read and so much enjoyed "The Year of the Flood". I guess part of the reason I avoid books like this one is because I don't like "message" books about dystopian societies. I read literature for good writing and good characters, so I don't like when an author is intent on revealing some "truth"--I guess I find that heavy-handed and not interesting.

Okay, so this is a message book. And it certainly is quite heavy handed. Not much subtlety about this world in which many animal species have gone extinct (while strange genetic splices are common) and all the main characters belong to a religious sect that worships nature and evolves partly into eco-terrorism. Even before the actual end happens, the setting for this story is the end of the world. In the sense that people are living in a brutalized, fearful, dangerous world that bears little resemblance to ours.

And yet "The Year of The Flood" is full of such human characters, such lyrical writing, such unexpected charms and genuine thrills that I became completely engrossed, in a way that I didn't think was possible for this kind of novel.

As much as Atwood was determined to hammer in her message (and she sure was determined), it was never at the expense of telling a story. The plot revolves around The Gardeners and how they are able to negotiate an immoral and lawless world especially after the global pandemic that's referred to as The Waterless Flood. (I will be sparse with plot details because you need not and should not know any more) With such a dramatic setting, there are, of course, many scary moments and there are intensely sad moments. But there is also a lot of humor, a lot that's endearingly familiar. And ultimately, I guess I found this to be a...positive book? Maybe that's the wrong word, for such a bleak future. But I do think "The Year of the Flood" is ultimately hopeful.

It was a harrowing experience at times but I'm so glad I gave this book (and Margaret Atwood) a chance to show me that science fiction can really be wonderful literature. I definitely look forward to reading more from her! (less)

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Jan 13, 2012 Nate D rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: rakunks

Recommended to Nate D by: liobams

Shelves: canada, dystopiary

In college, I read few books outside of my coursework, but a couple of those that I did read turned out to be pretty influential for the kinds of things I started devouring immediately upon graduation, mostly tending towards post-modern reconstructions of genre fiction. The House of Leaves for one, then Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep?, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, a strange tale of the end of the world built along converging lines of...more In college, I read few books outside of my coursework, but a couple of those that I did read turned out to be pretty influential for the kinds of things I started devouring immediately upon graduation, mostly tending towards post-modern reconstructions of genre fiction. The House of Leaves for one, then Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep?, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, and Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, a strange tale of the end of the world built along converging lines of past and the future.

Since then, Atwood has been a little hit or miss for me. The Blind Assassin became another favorite soon after, and The Handmaid's Tale, but Alias Grace, and other more realist ventures felt rather underwhelming and incomplete. So apparently it's her formalist sci-fi that gets me, and here, in a darkly imagined, elaborately structured sequel of sorts to Oryx (or rather Durrell-esque parallel telling, perhaps), she's in pretty solid form.

It's been a decade since Oryx, and this story didn't immediately mesh with my recollection, a more fully-fleshed treatment of plausibly near future ecological collapse but taking more time to set up its pieces and with less immediate urgency. And what if my tastes have simply veered in the last ten years? But then her world-details began to win me over, decaying inner cities and a central cult-group who built religion of environmentalism, scientific principle, and Saints Days devoted to various biologists (which then become the organizing structure of the chapters, incidentally), and by the time recollected details from the previous book begin to turn up halfway through, the plotting had coiled into page-turning fervor. Atwood's plotting may over-rely on coincidence, here, but she manages to both re-wire and expand upon the original story without really needing it there for support, so it works. But I now so definitely need to return to Oryx in order to patch up the fuller story, and track down a few unremembered peripheral characters.

Besides just being a good, eerie apocalypse story, this sparkled with compelling characters (though I sometimes wondered why we followed Ren rather than her more able counter-part Amanda -- more of an every-women, perhaps?), satiric detail, corny corporate naming that didn't actually feel forced, and for a story with so many ecological and environmental details, it's not overly message-driven. Evironmental collapse is just an utterly plausible plot context that Atwood presents matter-of-factly and without over-discussion. Also, this moves rthe action from Oryx's cloistered upper-crust lives out into the anarchic proletariat lives, which is a plus. Apparently this is planned as trilogy, and while so many series seem rather forced, each of these independent enough in its development that I'll be fine with another.
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Dec 17, 2009 Lauren rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: audiobooks, speculative-fiction, library-loan

Profoundly brilliant. Had I not read this directly after reading Oryx and Crake, I would have missed so many things - little nuances, passing comments made by the characters... it just enriched the earlier story and brought so much depth, context, and elegance. Like looking at the Rubin's vase optical illusion and only seeing it one way for so long, and then someone points out the other image right before your eyes. Of course, it was Ms. Atwood herself who constructed the image and slowly sheds...more Profoundly brilliant. Had I not read this directly after reading Oryx and Crake, I would have missed so many things - little nuances, passing comments made by the characters... it just enriched the earlier story and brought so much depth, context, and elegance. Like looking at the Rubin's vase optical illusion and only seeing it one way for so long, and then someone points out the other image right before your eyes. Of course, it was Ms. Atwood herself who constructed the image and slowly sheds light on it with each chapter in her books - alas, I think she has one (possibly two!) more story to tell here.

Year of the Flood has two narrators - both survivors of an apocalyptic event (a "waterless flood"), and both linked from their associations with "God's Gardeners", a religious sect. The two women are of different generations but share the foundations of the Gardeners' beliefs long after they have left the group's compound. The story moves back and forth in time (before and after "The Flood"), describing the lives of the women as they move about, and how they eventually come back together after "The Flood" mentioned in the title of the book.

Atwood's creation of the "Gardeners" is so fascinating - she has gathered the cult's doctrine and principles from 19th-century transcendentalism, Jain and Hindu philosophies, post-modern environmental thought, the zeal of 1970's "born-again" Christianity with a tad of Hare Krishna devotion, the apocalyptic asceticism of the Essenes, as well as the homesteading, return-to-the-land movement of post-Industrial North America. The hierarchy is based around a group of senior leaders, called the Adams and Eves. "Adam One" is the group's leader and "pastor" of sorts, because he teaches the group and is featured in several chapters in the book with some of his sermons, followed by songs that are sung by the Gardeners. (The audiobook version had all of the composed songs with accompaniment, and the songs are also available on Atwood's website.) The group canonizes scientists like Dian Fossey and Jacques Cousteau, and has feast days for St. Rachel Carson and so many other well-known luminaries in the fields of ecology, zoology, and life sciences. They also celebrate days like "Mole Day" and "Predator Day", noting the importance of food chain, the smallest creatures and their contributions, etc.

I will admit, there were a few times that I just had to take a pause, Atwood "blew my mind" more than once.

One of my new favorites, hands down.

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Nov 27, 2009 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, reviewed

Margaret Atwood does not write safe books. She doesn't write books that make you comfortable or happy or sure of yourself. She doesn't prop up her readers. She scares them. She freaks them out. She throws things at them. She plants rocks under the mattress so you can't sleep. She leaves obstacles in your path that you will trip over, no matter how careful you are. That is, of course, why I love her. It's also why her books are only slightly more difficult to write about than they are to read.

The...more

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Jun 22, 2012 Cecily rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopian, american-canadian

This story is parallel to "Oryx and Crake" (http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...), and has several characters in common, though the writing style and overall format is quite different. Having read both, I can't decide whether it is better to read them in publication order (O&C first) or not, but it's certainly good to read them in quick succession. As with O&C, it is about the characters; many aspects are only ever partially explained, part way through, leaving the reader suitably di...more This story is parallel to "Oryx and Crake" (http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...), and has several characters in common, though the writing style and overall format is quite different. Having read both, I can't decide whether it is better to read them in publication order (O&C first) or not, but it's certainly good to read them in quick succession. As with O&C, it is about the characters; many aspects are only ever partially explained, part way through, leaving the reader suitably disoriented in this distopian world.

It tells of the run up to and aftermath of "the waterless flood" in the near future: a man-made plague, which has wiped out most of the population and damaged the climate. It focus on an eco-religious community (cult?) called God's Gardeners. They foresee the flood and prepare for it, and in the interim, they are self-sufficient vegetarians, who scrounge scraps to reuse and recycle, and avoid the corrupt CorpSeCorp (police) and corporations that run society: "They view us as twisted fanatics who combine food extremism with bad fashion sense and a puritanical attitude to shopping. But we own nothing they want."

Every third or fourth chapter is a sermon by Adam One, followed by the words of a hymn. The result is a curious combination of anti-capitalist eco treatise and satire, Biblical-style liturgy, and end-of-the-world fight for survival, with dashes of bathetic humour - but overall, Atwood makes it work.

The story focuses on resilient, loyal female characters: Toby, who escapes various abuses to join the Gardeners as an adult, and Ren, who is taken from the safe luxury of a corporate compound when her mother runs away with a gardener. The male characters are flat and in the background (even the leader, Adam One) or bad (Blanco), though somehow it doesn't feel like a feminist rant. Ren's sections are mostly recounted in the first person and Toby's in the first.

Although it jumps around timewise, the first part of the book has plenty of positive aspects (and some vague angst), whereas the later sections are unrelenting accounts of the lengths (and depths) people will go to in order to survive, even when they are unsure if it is worth it: "This thing I'm doing can hardly be called living, Instead I'm lying dormant, like a bacterium in a glacier. Getting time over with."

The eco theme is obvious, but actually, the exploration of cult mentality is more fundamental and interesting, and it raises far more questions than it answers, exploring the many reasons why people join - and remain in - cults: no where/one else, fear, idealism, escape, drifting, actual belief, loneliness, wanting to be taken care of and not have to make decisions, even just by accident. And of course, power tends to corrupt. The senior Gardeners (Adams and Eves) break and adjust their own rules. For example, they have (and use) a laptop ("It's like the Vatican porn collection... safe in our hands") and they make surprisingly pragmatic changes to their belief system, looking for reasons to justify them afterwards.

It avoids being depressing by having plenty of gentle humour and irony: a genetically-modified caterpillar has a cute babyish face, making it hard to kill, and at the end of an earnest sermon, Adam One ends "I'm glad we have all remembered our sunhats". For all their ideals, the Gardeners are eminently practical. Another comment of Adam One's is painfully ironic, "'Nothing bad will be done to you.' But since Adam One thought even the most terrible things happened for ultimately excellent though unfathomable reasons, X didn't find this reassuring." Atwood even points out in the acknowledgement that readers are free to use the hymns for "amateur devotional or environmental purposes"! It is also full of punning portmanteaus: the exfernal world, rakunk (rat-skunk), SeksMart, AnooYoo Spa, garboil (oil from garbage), liobamb (lion-lamb).

The ending is very abrupt (though just a different view of the final scene of O&C) and after more than 500 pages, I was still unsure whether Atwood wants me to agree with the Gardeners or to laugh at them. Although I tend to like ambiguous endings, I was taken aback and slightly disappointed. However, a few hours later, when I'd really thought about it, I think it was the right way to end.

I think it would have benefited from a little pruning - the level of detail about Gardener lifestyle and some of Adam One's sermons, but that's a small quibble about an excellent and original novel.

"Nature full strength is more than we can take... It is a potent hallucinogen, a soporific for the untrained Soul. We're no longer at home in it. We need to dilute it... And God is the same. Too much God and you overdose. God needs to be filtered."

Less reverently, and from a non-Gardener: "As soon as you say 'I'll be dead,' you've said the word I, so you're still alive inside the sentence. And that's how people got the idea of the immortality of the soul - it was a consequence of grammar. And so was God, because as soon as there's a past tense, there has to be a past before the past, and you keep going back in time until you get to 'I don't know', and that's what God is."(less)

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Nov 24, 2012 Rob rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Rob by: Amy

Shelves: inscribed, 2011, apocalypse, science-fiction

The Year of the Flood is a gripping book about forgiveness and humanity, and about renewal. But that last bit ought to be obvious from the title, right? Aren't all "flood" myths basically about destroying what was old to give rise to something new? And aren't all flood myths [1] more/less predicated on the world arriving in some terminally corrupt state?

As such: this made me want to re-read Oryx & Crake .

As such: the post-apocalyptic elements reminded me a little bit [2] of The Road .

As such...more

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Feb 25, 2010 Will Byrnes rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Year of the Flood is a sequel to her 2003 book Oryx and Crake. (Those characters arrive here in the back quarter of the book) They are both set in a post-apocalyptic western nation, and explore the implications of many contemporary trends.

Although I share Atwood’s concern about most of the problem sources she identifies, the book did at times feel a bit like a laundry list of the sins of the 20th and 21st centuries. Of course, some of the dynamics she portrays are eternal, battles for power...more

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Dec 29, 2009 Jen rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Lisa, Anna, Joy, Jean

Recommended to Jen by: Katie

Shelves: fiction, environmental-writing

I wish I could give this book more than five stars. I re-read Oryx and Crake before picking this up, and when I finished I not only wanted to pick up Oryx and Crake and read it a third time, but I also immediately wanted to re-read this book. To summarize for those unfamiliar with Atwood's latest books, these are dystopian views of future society that depict a reality that is eerily possible given the current direction of world affairs. Pigs spliced with baboons to result in animals that produce...more

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Jan 11, 2010 Kathryn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: dystopian, science-fiction, plague

This is what I call a slogger, one of those books I slowly slog through, rather like mud or jello. Don't ask me to explain too much but it's an image I often use.

Some sloggers are rewarding. For those I must be in the right frame of mind. Some sloggers I give up on, usually out of boredom. This book fell squarely in the middle. I think I'll continue this is the group thread...

Recommended for lovers of Atwood's writing (which I happily count myself among) or lovers of apocalyptic fiction who are...more

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Oct 09, 2009 Ben rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, dystopian, read-2009, science-fiction, literary-sf

This is a "sidequel" to Oryx and Crake. Though I believe Flood would stand alone pretty well, I think you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you read it first.

I really loved everything about this book. I liked it more than Oryx and Crake, but at the same time I believe it makes Oryx and Crake a much better book. It gives a wholly different view of the world from the viewpoint of the Gardeners, which provides a wide-array of great characters.

Really makes me want to reread Oryx and Crake, even th...more

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Mar 24, 2011 Marty rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ultimately I enjoyed this, although I took time to warm to the frequent time and person shifts within the plot. I didn't feel the story flowed that well until the latter half. In the end the strands did come together well and I liked the fact that this story interweaves with Oryx and Crake. This is neither a sequel or prequel but covers different characters' experiences during the same time-period, so adds substance and fresh perspective to the pre and post armaggedon world first created within...more

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Jan 02, 2013 Sheri rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: male-female-power-sex-attractivenes, poverty-class-issues, fantasy

So..I'm still not so convinced there is a story here. See my review of Oryx and Crake for starters, but essentially in The Year of the Flood we get 97% (my kindle version did not have page numbers so I can't give that) back story. AGAIN! And then the current action starts where O&C ended with 3% left of the book. I checked Atwood's website and there is no notice of MaddAddam #3, but presumably it will come out soon and we can actually have a story. I'm guessing, though that it will be backst...more So..I'm still not so convinced there is a story here. See my review of Oryx and Crake for starters, but essentially in The Year of the Flood we get 97% (my kindle version did not have page numbers so I can't give that) back story. AGAIN! And then the current action starts where O&C ended with 3% left of the book. I checked Atwood's website and there is no notice of MaddAddam #3, but presumably it will come out soon and we can actually have a story. I'm guessing, though that it will be backstory from Zeb or Glenn/Crake's POV and we will once again end at the pivotal moment on the beach.

Getting that complaint out there, there are lots of good things in these two books. I like her anti-materialist and anti-consumerist comments; certainly the perspective in YOF is different from O&C (much more pro-religious and not nearly as focused on the genetic engineering moral component).

After reading O&C I was not sure that Atwood's perspective on religion was negative (clearly Jimmy's and Crake's was), but in YOF she presents a much different picture. Now that we see Crake as a young adult interacting with the Gardeners and can find lots of Crake's later philosophies as regards to the development of the Crakers as originating from Gardener preaching, it is hard to understand these novels as anything but containing moral/religious propaganda themselves (with which I would disagree personally).

For instance, Adam One preaches: "they fell from a joyous life in the moment into the anxious contemplation of the vanished past and the distant future....sucked into the well of knowledge, you could only plummet, learning more and more, but not getting any happier." which sounds a ton like Crake's explanations to Jimmy in O&C for keeping the Crakers simple. My husband once wrote a paper about Utopia and he came to the conclusion that all Utopias require religion (Opiate of the Masses, if you will). I am left wondering if Atwood has reached a similar conclusion.

I was also wondering if Zeb was Crake's missing father (generation would be right and we don't ever find out from where Zeb comes) and he whole splat on freeway story could have been a set up to get the CorpSeCorps men off his trail. This may also make sense as to why so many of the Gardeners did not end up getting sick because Glenn could have given the antidote to Pilar and Zeb and they immunized the early Gardeners. Also, I am not sure I quite get how Crake/MaddAddam/Zeb relationship goes from working together to the MaddAddam programmers having been kidnapped by psycho-Crake.

Going along with this, some of Zeb's actions don't make sense. He is not really a Gardener and there are several comments during the early years that he is an obvious second in command to Adam One, so why is it that he is so committed to finding Adam One after the Waterless Flood? Wouldn't he just declare himself the new leader? Why doesn't he go after Toby (since she is less than a day's walk away and he knows where she is)? Why do they spend their time recruiting anyone rather than just building up their sheep-compound?

Another complaint I had (which seems to occur with regularity in almost everything I read) was the convenience and size of the world. These people are supposed to live in a fairly large city and are segregated into compounds/ares. And yet, EVERYONE KEEPS RUNNING INTO EACH OTHER. Isn't it odd that Amanda (Jimmy's future girlfriend) is also his ex-girlfriend's best friend from the weird cult that they both were sort of accidentally involved with as kids? Isn't it odd that Jimmy's mom is hid by TOBY for a short run? Isn't it odd that Bernice is Jimmy's weird roommate who burns his shoes? Isn't it completely ridiculous that Blanco finds Toby multiple times INCLUDING at the end? I mean, come on...just way too much overlap here for any sort of plausibility.

On the plus side, Atwood does have a knack for accurately portraying conflicting human emotions and thoughts. My three favorites were: "Why do we want other people to like us, even if we don't really care about them all that much? I don't know why, but it's true." and "Maybe that's what love is, I thought: it's being pissed off." and "What am I living for and what am I dying for are the same question."

Again, I loved the world and I am interested in reading the last book, but I'm gonna probably only give it a 2 star rating if the whole point of the series is "blank slate, new world" or "perspective is everything and so we get different versions from different POV" and the whole novel is back story with Zeb (or someone else) arriving on the beach with a few pages left in the story.(less)

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Dec 13, 2012 verbava rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: canadian, apocalypse, favorites

як завше, неймовірна.
мені подобається, що це та сама історія, яка була в "ориксі й деркачі", але розказана іншими персонажами про інше – світ стає зовсім об'ємний. подобається, як тут переплітаються три наративні потоки (і, що найцікавіше, не тільки "я" і "вона", а ще й "ми", яке переходить у "ви" – у проповідях адама першого). подобається дивна екологічна релігія, у висновках якої проглядає підвішеність людства: сконструйований світ нищить нас, але так само для нас небезпечно занадто багато при...more як завше, неймовірна.
мені подобається, що це та сама історія, яка була в "ориксі й деркачі", але розказана іншими персонажами про інше – світ стає зовсім об'ємний. подобається, як тут переплітаються три наративні потоки (і, що найцікавіше, не тільки "я" і "вона", а ще й "ми", яке переходить у "ви" – у проповідях адама першого). подобається дивна екологічна релігія, у висновках якої проглядає підвішеність людства: сконструйований світ нищить нас, але так само для нас небезпечно занадто багато природи. їх зовуть "садівники господні", і в російському перекладі вийшло дуже гарно – "вертоградарі".
а ще, звісно, про мову дуже гарно, і хочу-хочу, щоб у наступній частині було більше про слова – хоча, мабуть, садівники господні найбільше звертали уваги на мову (чого варта сама заборона залишати слова там, де їх можуть побачити, – бо побачити ж можуть вороги). бог як наслідок граматики – теж щось дивовижне.

Glenn used to say the reason you can’t really imagine yourself being dead was that as soon as you say, “I’ll be dead,” you’ve said the word I, and so you’re still alive inside the sentence. And that’s how people got the idea of the immortality of the soul – it was a consequence of grammar. And so was God, because as soon as there’s a past tense, there has to be a past before the past, and you keep going back in time until you get to I don’t know, and that’s what God is. It’s what you don’t know – the dark, the hidden, the underside of the visible, and all because we have grammar.

і дуже багато почуттів. у якийсь момент навіть довелося почати іншу книжку, щоб потім могти заснути.(less)

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Sashko Liutyj порадьте, будь ласка, з якої книжки починати читати цю авторку.
Dec 13, 2012 12:22pm

verbava з етвуд складно радити, особливо чоловікам.
я закохалася в неї після "surfacing" (російською перекладене як "постижение" – і, в принципі, якщо зосереди...more з етвуд складно радити, особливо чоловікам.
я закохалася в неї після "surfacing" (російською перекладене як "постижение" – і, в принципі, якщо зосередитися на сяганні, а не на досягненні, якось так і є), але то дуже дівчача книжка, не знаю, чи вас пробере. втім, побачила у вас високу оцінку "згори вниз", можете спробувати, чимось ці тексти схожі.
або "сліпий убивця", там роман у романі у романі, майже сімейна сага з елементами міфу. пам'ятаю, що мене ця книжка дуже гріла.
якщо схочете апокаліпсису, то "рік потопу" буде якраз воно – хоч то й друга книжка трилогії, але там байдуже, звідки починати, а російський переклад тетяни боровикової справді потужний.
є ще варіант скуштувати кілька оповідань – тут якраз переклали російською "dancing girls", правда, в перекладі вона зветься "пожирательница грехов". там наче сюжетні. у "good bones and simple murders" переважно безсюжетні, більше есеї, ніж оповідання, але страшенно хороші, про чоловіків і жінок. наприклад, так:

I no longer want to read about anything sad. Anything violent, anything disturbing, anything like that. No funerals at the end, though there can be some in the middle. If there must be deaths, let there be resurrections, or at least a Heaven so we know where we are. Depression and squalor are for those under twenty-five, they can take it, they even like it, they still have enough time left. But real life is bad for you, hold it in your hand long enough and you'll get pimples and become feeble-minded. You'll go blind.
I want happiness, guaranteed, joy all round, covers with nurses on them or brides, intelligent girls but not too intelligent, with regular teeth and pluck and both breasts the same size and no excess facial hair, someone you can depend on to know where the bandages are and to turn the hero, that potential rake and killer, into a well-groomed country gentleman with clean fingernails and the right vocabulary. _Always,_ he has to say. _Forever._ I no longer want to read books that don't end with the word _forever._ I want to be stroked between the eyes, one way only.

(less)
Dec 13, 2012 12:50pm

Sashko Liutyj клас! дякую за вичерпну відповідь)
вже скачав, днями почну.
а оповідання - чудесне.
Dec 13, 2012 01:55pm

Oct 11, 2009 Kathleen Gilroy rated it 5 of 5 stars

I have been a huge fan of Margaret Atwood since reading her books in college. I think The Handmaid's Tale is a masterpiece. The Year of the Flood, while not quite as masterful as the Handmaid's Tale, is nevertheless an absorbing, sobering look at a fantasy future. The novel is beautifully structured. Each chapter opens with a sermon by Adam One -- the leader of a radical green group that has rejected the "advances" of science in the world outside the green compound. These advances are logical an...more

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Oct 19, 2009 Diandra rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009

Ho-hum. Not her best, definitely not a horrible book. It's quite hard to actually put down my feelings towards this book because I had so many issues with it. First issue: Continuity. I can pinpoint one precise excerpt where the continuity between Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood really did not match up at all. There were quite a few other instances where the timeline didn't make sense, but... whatevs. Second issue: Adam One's Saint Day speeches. So tedious, so pious, so boring. Reminds me w...more

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Mar 20, 2012 Natalia rated it 4 of 5 stars

I found this book to be quite interesting, if a little frightening and I say this because the things that happened within this story (which also ties in with Oryx and Crake, also an excellent book), could possibly happen to our planet and all the living things on it if it hasn't already. This will make you pause and look around you as you ask yourself, 'What happens if this really does occur?'.
As for the characters, I found that I could identify with them and their actions. Although some were a...more

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Feb 18, 2012 Bettie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: tbr-busting-2012, winter-20112012, sci-fi, fantasy, dystopian, fraudio, published-2009, philosophy, doo-lally, women, too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts, plague-disease, amusing, environmental-issues, food-glorious-food, gardening, gorefest, lifestyles-deathstyles, ouch

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 18, 2013 Jen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: apocalypse, novels

The book follows two protagonists, one minor character from Oryx & Crake and one new character. Atwood's follow-up book is a deep and fascinating dive into the world and theology of the 'God's Gardeners' sect, driven by an ingenious plot that interlocks seamlessly with the first book in the trilogy.

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Oct 08, 2010 mary rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library, literary-fiction, unabridged-audio

I have always loved Margaret Atwood. I haven't read a single book of hers before this that I didn't love. But I am finding that The Year of the Flood is both tedious and twee --- as though constant tongue-in-cheek references to today's culture run amok are enough to carry the theme. They are not.

I chalk the multiple positive ratings it has garnered up to the fact that, hey, this is Margaret Atwood we're critiquing here. Well, it appears even Margaret can phone one in.

Unless things change for the...more

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Jan 18, 2010 Abigail rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2009, mfa-annotations, social-critique, urban-fantasy, dystopias

Although I really enjoyed this book, I didn't like it as much as I liked "Oryx and Crake." However I liked seeing how the same events take place from the persepctive of different people. It gave the events a new spin, also we get to understand how Greg/Crake came to believe in the ideals he displayed in the first book.

The theology of the Gardners was well thought out and even though the main characters seemed to regard a number of the teachings as flawed, it gave them something to hold onto whe...more

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Apr 19, 2013 James rated it 5 of 5 stars

Margaret Atwood is an exceptional mainstream writer, but she also writes excellent science fiction. In her science fiction masterpiece, "Oryx and Crake," she writes with the beautiful prose and strong characterization that one expects from a literary novel, and also gives a thoughtful treatment of the ramifications of living in a hypothetical world, which is the very point of science fiction and fantasy.

Atwood also brings this doubly skillful writing to "The Year of the Flood," which is set in...more

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The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam Trilogy #2)

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