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The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam Trilogy #2)

by Margaret Atwood (Goodreads Author)

3.90 · rating details · 13,020 ratings · 2,351 reviews

The long-awaited new novel from Margaret Atwood. The Year of the Flood is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to her visionary power.

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, ...more

Paperback, Large Print, 576 pages

Published September 22nd 2009 by Random House Large Print (first published January 1st 2009)

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Oct 18, 2010

smetchie rated it

· review of another edition

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...more

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Jan 08, 2010

Kemper rated it

· review of another edition

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, an...moreI’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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Jan 27, 2012

Tanu Das rated it

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Shelves: must-must-must-read, coming-off-age, cultural, dysoptia, emotional-drama, excellent-prose, favorite, favorite-protagonist, human-cruelty, 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 mentall...more

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Jul 11, 2011

Jamie rated it

· review of another edition

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 e...more

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Aug 07, 2010

Jennifer (aka EM) rated it

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Recommends it for: eco-terrorists, doomsday theorists, vegetarians, rooftop gardeners

Shelves: library, 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.

***********************************

It might be my current state of mind; it might be that I read this too...more

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Jan 13, 2012

Nate rated it

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Recommends it for: rakunks

Recommended to Nate 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 ...moreIn 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

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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 sh...moreProfoundly 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

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Shelves: 2009, canadians, food-for-foodie, 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.
...more

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May 01, 2010

Tatiana rated it

· 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 s...moreThe 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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Dec 29, 2009

Jen rated it

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Recommends it for: Lisa, Anna, Joy, Jean

Recommended to Jen by: Katie

Shelves: fiction

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

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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 apo...more

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Oct 09, 2009

Ben rated it

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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...more

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Mar 24, 2011

Marty rated it

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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 03, 2012

Cecily rated it

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Shelves: dystopian

This story is parallel to Oryx and Crake, 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 tell...moreThis story is parallel to Oryx and Crake, 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 forth 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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Oct 11, 2009

Kathleen Gilroy rated it

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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...more

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Oct 19, 2009

Diandra rated it

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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. Re...more

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Oct 08, 2010

zz-neena rated it

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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.

Unle...more

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Jan 18, 2010

Abigail rated it

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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 s...more

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Mar 05, 2010

Sara added it · review of another edition

The Year of the Flood is a story of the apocalypse, as told by two women who have lived through it. In a ruined world, Ren and Toby have persevered in part because of their participation in an environmentalist cult called God s Gardeners, which prophesied a Waterless Flood that would cleanse the world. The Flood has come in the form of a plague that kills almost all of humanity. When it strikes, Toby is managing a luxurious day spa, and Ren is an exotic dancer in a high-end strip club. The two ...more

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Feb 01, 2012

Andrew Klem rated it

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I accidentally read this one first, not realizing that Oryx and Crake came before. If anyone else is considering doing this, fear not! The book made perfect sense, although there are a few lingering mysteries which may or may not be answered in other books. I am on to Oryx and Crake next, but as of this point, I cannot think of any reason they need to be read in order.

The book is simple in structure and tone, much like The Handmaid's Tale, and it was a very quick and "easy"...moreI accidentally read this one first, not realizing that Oryx and Crake came before. If anyone else is considering doing this, fear not! The book made perfect sense, although there are a few lingering mysteries which may or may not be answered in other books. I am on to Oryx and Crake next, but as of this point, I cannot think of any reason they need to be read in order.

The book is simple in structure and tone, much like The Handmaid's Tale, and it was a very quick and "easy" read. Overall, it was believable, even when it was funny. The Mo'Hairs, rakunks, and Kewpie-faced kudzu moths appear fairly early, so the book almost seems silly, at first. I thought I was in for an ironic Neal Stephenson-esque commentary a la Snow Crash, but the more time I spent thinking about the "silly" aspects, the more I believed her. The liobams are plausible to me--they remind me of the "Red Heifer" obsessed over by some Christians. The Kewpie faces seem entirely likely when I consider the culture (mine) that designed them.

With any book featuring a cult at it's center, there is a risk that the author will be so unfamiliar with or critical of real faith and passion that the cult will ultimately stand in only dimensions, in sharp contrast to the three-dimensional protagonists. The Gardener's, however, are perfectly developed. They are exactly as believable as the dominant culture from The Handmaid's Tale, which is astonishing. I cannot imagine what Margaret Atwood's internal life is like, but it must be fascinating.

Unlike with The Handmaid's Tale, I had a hard time deciding how I felt about this cult. I find her depiction of faith and religious community authentic.

In nearly every cult-themed book I have read, the author chose, eventually, and normally as an aspect of the climax, to describe a critical (and usually dispassionate) decision the cult-leader made about someone's well-being. This decision normally led the reader to conclude that the leader of the religious organization was barely human. Usually, the leader had abandoned his or her humanity in favor of some ego-driven "spiritual" goal.

I appreciate that Atwood resists this temptation. All close-knit, insular groups have secrets (in my experience), and Atwood hints at a few darker undercurrents within the community--particularly in reference to Zeb and Adam One--but she never knocks down her own straw man, and she leaves those mysteries in tact. The Gardeners are so passive when most internal conflict hits that the reader rarely gets to see these potentially shady characters make judge-able decisions. When the leaders are actually required to make difficult decisions, they happen so far "off screen" that there is no opportunity for the reader to understand exactly why. This was one of the most powerful aspects of the book for me. It put me very much in the shoes of a doubtful and reluctant convert (as both of the protagonists are). If Atwood is trying to communicate something about cults through this series, she is not opting for a cliche, and I am thrilled.

I found the use of first- and second-person interesting (once I finally noticed it). Why is Toby perpetually "she", while Ren remains "I" throughout? The only reason I can imagine is that Ren is deliberately made weak, so Atwood used the "I" to draw the reader closer to Ren, to force the reader to identify with her most closely. Toby is far more tempting as a hero. In contrast to Ren, she is strong and skilled at everything she does. She has secret knowledge, deep empathy and compassion, and she is a master huntress. She manages others perfectly. While we see her vulnerable, no one else does. It is easy to want to be Toby, much harder to want to be Ren.

Overall, I truly enjoyed this book. Definitely worth reading, and I am ready for Oryx and Crake!(less)

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Jan 20, 2012

Philippa rated it

· review of another edition

I didn't actually realise that this was part of a series until I read the author's note at the end, so admittedly that might have dulled my enjoyment of it slightly. Still, whilst this did mean that I didn't always understand some of the terms and concepts thrown about - Mo'Hairs, for example - the general plot can be understood fine without first reading Oryx & Crake.

The general premise of this book - two women surviving the Waterless Flood and then dealing with the fallout - is br...more

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Jan 19, 2012

Jennifer Aynilian rated it

· review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I can't bear to give a book by Margaret Atwood anything less than a 4 or 5 out of sheer respect. The combination of sheer skill in fiction writing coupled with knowledge of current science and technology reality and an inventiveness for extrapolation into near-reality that she drew upon to write such a novel is just mind blowing. So whether or not it makes pleasant reading, and often it does not, it is a haunting story full of food for thought that will stay with you and cause you to perk up y...moreI can't bear to give a book by Margaret Atwood anything less than a 4 or 5 out of sheer respect. The combination of sheer skill in fiction writing coupled with knowledge of current science and technology reality and an inventiveness for extrapolation into near-reality that she drew upon to write such a novel is just mind blowing. So whether or not it makes pleasant reading, and often it does not, it is a haunting story full of food for thought that will stay with you and cause you to perk up your ears the next time a news story comes on the air this or that genetically modified animal that some company wants to release into the wild. (I heard one about a mosquito at the same time I read this book - it's here folks!) It was interesting to see a few similarities between this and Cormac McCarthy's post-disaster novel, The Road.

It is probably best read not too long after Oryx & Crake, as the action takes place parallel to that story. The 3 year gap was a bit too long for me to remember enough of O & C to get all I could out of this book. Oddly enough, the only character from O & C who stayed firmly planted in my memory, even more than Jimmy/Snowman himself, was Jimmy's mother...so it was interesting to see her make a reappearance in this story. I had the feeling Atwood was planning to do more with her and then let the thread drop at some point because she had to bring the novel to an end. In her Science Friday interview on NPR it sounded as though there's a third coming in this series, so maybe we'll see more of her there. In fact many aspects of the ending were sort of unsatisfying, so I am hoping the 3rd book will remedy some of this sense of inconclusiveness.

In this unpleasant future world (perhaps 100 years from now? Martha Graham is referred to as an "ancient" dancer) where the earth's ecosystems have been plundered and to shreds, a great many species have continued to become extinct, and the sun has become a hot, burning threat ostensibly shining through a mostly-destroyed ozone layer, Atwood explores reactions from different parts of a hyper-capitalist, radically unequal society to the grim reality of day-to-day life in such a world.

Those protected in their corporate gated compounds try to ignore or hide from the unpleasantness as much as possible, or out-smart it through engineering, some outside the corporate walls adopt environmentalism as a religion, some eventually split off and embrace a type of eco-terrorism, some are able to clearly percieve the destruction and wrongness of it all from within the corporate gated communities but feel too overwhelmed to cope and fall into a type of paralysis - like Jimmy's mother. Ren and Toby are the narrators of this take on the O & C world, and I adored Toby. Ren was somehow harder to imagine in the flesh. Amanda was instantly plausible. Like Toby, I thought Atwood herself might be still toying with the merits of taking a God's Gardeners approach to our current and coming troubles on this planet as she wrote, with a big dollop of sympathy for Zeb's outlook, and fair shake of skepticism or ambiguousness toward it emobodied in Toby's wry remarks (concerning certain soft spots where the GGs rules necessarily fall apart).

I never fully grasped Adam One....where he came from, how deeply he might have been involved in something unsavoury, how noble or unnoble his efforts in founding the Gardeners would ultimately turn out to be. I kept thinking he might perhaps even be revealed as a perpetrator of the Gread Flood since he seemed to have anticipated it so cleary, but considering the end fate of GG's, I suppose we are to conclude he was peaceful and well-intentioned if rather weak and (too) willing to sacrifice members of his group - and also despite the fact that he had to invent the GG faith as he went along - as Atwood would probably remind us that all early leaders of any religion have found it necessary to do.

It would be interesting to see a complete list of all the horrible new inventions and situations put forth in this book and know which ones are currently reality (the green bunnies apparently are, though thankfully not hopping around in the wild yet), which one's are soon-to-be reality, and which are hopefully still more or less figments of a brilliant imagination. I think Atwood considers this our job as readers to find out - she could have written more to this end in the Afterword but chose not to.

Finally, I thought this book was a tiny bit unfair to the male characters. There don't seem to be any males who's actions are not directly under the control of their mating instincts all or at least most of the time. Which is not too terribly far from reality, but maybe a little harsh.

Not always tasty medicine but an intriguing and scary and clever book. I am waiting with a combination of excitement and dread for the third in this O & C trilogy.

(less)

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Jan 03, 2012

Lo rated it

· review of another edition

Very, very interesting book.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize The Year of the Flood was part of a trilogy; nevertheless, I didn't realize notice until the end where I saw the names Oryx and Crake (realizing that I probably should have read the book titled "Oryx and Crake" first...)

The Year of the Flood is a typical Margaret Atwood book, replete with all her flairs and nuances. Starting in media res, Atwood backtracks you through the history of a group called the "...more

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Dec 18, 2011

Lisa added it · review of another edition

The Year of the Flood begins after the plague from Oryx and Crake has killed off most of humanity. Two seemingly-different women have somehow survived; one, Toby, has barricaded herself inside a luxurious spa while exotic dancer Ren was fortunate to have been in quarantine at the time. Both women, however, share a common history as members of a religious group known as God’s Gardeners, who warned of a “waterless flood” that would wipe out humanity.

Most of the story focuses on Ren’s a...moreThe Year of the Flood begins after the plague from Oryx and Crake has killed off most of humanity. Two seemingly-different women have somehow survived; one, Toby, has barricaded herself inside a luxurious spa while exotic dancer Ren was fortunate to have been in quarantine at the time. Both women, however, share a common history as members of a religious group known as God’s Gardeners, who warned of a “waterless flood” that would wipe out humanity.

Most of the story focuses on Ren’s and Toby’s pasts in the Gardeners, a group briefly mentioned in Oryx and Crake. Atwood includes a sermon from the group’s leader at the beginning of each section, revealing the core tenets of the group, which seeks to reconcile Biblical tradition with modern biology. The Gardeners try to live an eco-friendly lifestyle, a contrast to the exaggerated commercialism surrounding them.

Year of the Flood also shows more of the “pleeblands” mentioned in Oryx and Crake, showing a world in which global warming has gotten out of control, and in which there is no corporate and environmental regulation whatsoever. The messages seem a bit heavy handed and absurd at times, but there is still a good story here.

The novel alternates between Toby’s point of view, and Ren’s, who tells her story in the third person. Both Ren and Toby’s stories intersect with each other, until the two are reunited near the end. The final portions after the plague feel a bit rushed, with the surviving characters finding one another a bit too quickly.

Many questions from the previous book are answered, including the origins of the “Extinctathon” game, and the identity of the people Jimmy encounters at the end of Oryx. New questions are raised as well however, such as Crake’s involvement with the Gardeners. Year of the Flood crosses over with Oryx and Crake in multiple places, although the novel can stand alone. This is still a great read, although the ending seems a bit abrupt; reading Oryx and Crake as well is recommended for a more complete story.(less)

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Dec 14, 2011

Charlotte Ivory rated it

· review of another edition

When I purchased this book, I fully expected to be giving it five stars. But as a follow-on from Oryx and Crake, I found it less compelling and gritty than the original.

The storey line is classic Atwood - apocalypse survivors dealing with day to day life, facing the harsh realities of surviving in a world turned feral and brutal.

The majority of the narrative is told in flashbacks, and these are woven together skilfully. Atwood is excellent, as usual, with revealing a little i...more

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Nov 19, 2011

Steven Langdon rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: super

"The Year of the Flood" has an integrity of its own, a cast of memorable characters, and a frightening take on a post-apocalypse future that will curdle your blood. So it is a powerful novel in its own right. But its texture is made far more complex and its story line becomes sharper and more dramatic when the book is seen as a companion piece to "Oryx and Crake," interwoven with the structure and characterization of that even more powerful earlier novel.

As...more

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Oct 28, 2011

Dave rated it

· review of another edition

An unusual book - and that's why it gets 4 stars - for being unusual. It's the other half of Oryx & Crake. It follows the lead-up to the plague that destroys most of humanity, but from the perspective of multiple other characters, some of which were introduced as secondary characters in the first book.

While Oryx & Crake followed characters who were mostly in the protected, walled Compounds where the well-off and scientists are protected from the Pleeblands. The characters in this book...more

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Sep 27, 2011

Rod rated it

· review of another edition

Technically, this book is science fiction. It is set in the future and includes numerous examples of science – usually gone wrong as a result of genetic engineering. The flood referred to in the title is a ‘waterless’ one, a plague deliberately engineered in the hope of proving an opportunity for a new start.

Each section begins with an address by Adam One, followed by a hymn of Atwood’s own composition taken from ‘The God’s Gardeners Oral Hymnbook’. Adam is a Gardener, one of the many ...more

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Sep 05, 2011

Susan Ackland rated it

· review of another edition

This is a novel of a dystopian future in which all government is corporate, corrupt, and scientifically advanced. The opposition is a group called God's Gardeners, who are Christian vegans and pacifists. The story is told from the Gardeners' point of view, but we're never told how or why the tyrannical government became evil. There is an implied connection between corporate/governmental evil and the slaughter of animals and ungodly science in the form of gene splicing. In the hubris of ove...more

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Sep 01, 2011

Alan rated it

· review of another edition

TAKEN FROM NOTES BEFORE FINISHING BOOK
I think part of what it is doing is predicting the potential chaos that could develop if we allow capitalism, or in her case a form of capitalism to take control.
The book was relatively successful. Nominated for awards. I think if she wasn’t the writer it may not have been published. Too harsh.
It is predicting private enterprise taking over the state, and security. And is predicting science being used to make money, opportunising on the selfis...more

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About Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario, Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.

Throughout her writing career, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and honourary degrees. She is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of po...more

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