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Oct 01, 2008

Lindsay rated it:

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

1 comment like (42 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2010

Tatiana rated it:

I wonder if all Margaret Atwoods books are like this one? Having read "Oryx and Crake" and "The Handmaid's Tale," I am curious now how many other ways of horrifying me she has up her sleeve.

"Oryx and Crake" is a dystopian (or as Atwood calls it herself, a speculative fiction) novel set in a future where genetic engineering rules the world. The story is told from the POV of Snowman, a seemingly last Homo sapiens sapiens on Earth. He is surrounded by the More...

21 comments like (40 people liked it)

Dec 28, 2009

Kemper rated it:

Geez. That was the most depressing apocalypse ever.

A guy called Snowman is playing caretaker and prophet to a strange new race of people he calls the Crakers in the ruins of civilization. As Snowman forages for supplies, his recollections make up the story of what caused a massive biological and ecological disaster that has apparently wiped all the old humans out except for him.

Snowman’s past takes place in our near future where he was once known as Jimmy in a society w More...

8 comments like (28 people liked it)

Aug 07, 2010

Jennifer (aka EM) rated it:

I'm coming back to the authors who marked my literary 'coming of age': Vonnegut, Atwood. These two, for me, are the grand-daddy and grand-mammy of my bookish adolescence. They were life rafts held out by a couple of high school teachers. I grabbed them and held on. I simply cannot review either properly, so wrapped in nostalgia is my own point of view; so personal my reaction. I'm reading them now to see how they hold up and what they have to say to me 30 years later; and in Atwood's case, More...

14 comments like (16 people liked it)

Sep 01, 2010

Annalisa rated it:

I'm struggling to pin a rating on this book. Atwood, as always, is a beautiful writer. The first fifty or so pages I drank up her language, her description and setting. But I have to confess that I didn't like the book. Part of that could be as a parent (of an 8-year-old girl no less) there were parts of Oryx's history that I struggled to read. Child pornography (and abuse) is about the only thing that makes we want to get violent and start castrating guys. After reading that section, I struggle More...

10 comments like (9 people liked it)

Oct 30, 2007

James rated it:

This is the first book I've ever read by Margaret Atwood. I wrote a story years ago that people told me was a lot like "The Handmaid's Tale" and since have been afraid to read her out of fear of connection. I grew out of it but figured I'd start with a more recent work. I liked this book a whole lot, and if it weren't for a few parts in the book, I might have given it four or even five stars. The story was dark and moving throughout and kept me interested to the very end. The prob More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Cori rated it:

From my blog:

This book was creep-tastically good. Seriously. Reading it disqueted my soul in a way that made me lose my appetite and really hope that this is fiction and not prophecy.

Atwood has a knack for writing dystopian novels that are set in the near-enough future to be completely relevant. She basically takes things that we have today, and stretches them into a terrifying future (as she did in the Handmaid's Tale, one of my all-time favorite books). In Oryx and Cra More...

1 comment like (13 people liked it)

Dec 28, 2007

Ratiocination rated it:

A mainstream author writing science fiction badly. Basically, tries to have it both ways: referencing real-world, present-day biotechnology without bothering to be accurate about it. I didn't enjoy reading it, and I don't like the implication-- that writing SF just involves throwing terminology around. One wouldn't have much patience for a legal thriller that ignored basic courtroom procedure; one wouldn't have much patience for a medical drama that got human anatomy wrong. I don't have much pa More...

12 comments like (16 people liked it)

Jul 21, 2011

Aloha rated it:

I started this book knowing that this is a post-apocalyptic novel. I knew that Snowman had survived some sort of mass destruction of mankind because of an experiment gone awry and is fighting for survival. The story started with Snowman sleeping in a tree, waking up in a survival mode, with the last of his provisions. He then observes the children at a distance, obviously not surprised or afraid of them. They knew him as they approached him and chanted his name, “Snowman, oh Snowman.” Who More...

2 comments like (12 people liked it)

Jul 08, 2011

Jamie rated it:

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

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Katie rated it:

Like A Handmaid's Tale and mumble's Mumble Mumble Mumble*, Oryx and Crake is a dystopian novel exploring the post-apocalyptic future of sex and the human race by following a small number of characters very closely.

In this case, the main character appears to be the only member of homo sapiens left alive, and the sole caretaker of a new human-like species, the Children of Crake, genetically re-engineered to be peaceful, happy, naturally insect-repellant vegans perfectly suited to the More...

5 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Aerin rated it:

One of the (many) things that has always struck me as ridiculous about the concept of ~~creationism~~ - sorry, sorry, "intelligent design" - is the idea that an infinitely kind and intelligent god designed human beings, and yet this is the best he could do. Give me some ultimate power, and I could design a better species. One not so prone to runny noses and cancer, for starters. One where the trachea and esophagus don't share an opening - that might cut down on that pesky "choking More...

1 comment like (30 people liked it)

Jul 22, 2011

Jennifer rated it:

ETA: I can't stop thinking about this book. It's haunting me. After careful consideration I've come to the conclusion that I have to change my initial rating to 5 stars. All of the issues I listed below were my initial reaction to the story, and I don't totally discredit that. After much soul searching, re-reading, and conversation with other readers, I can appreciate the subtle genius of Margaret Atwood's writing. My knee-jerk reaction was rooted in the idea that while this is realistic...we More...

4 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

mim rated it:

Margaret Atwood began scaring me with Handmaiden's Tale. I thought it wouldn't happen again, but it did. This book was frighting

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 11, 2009

Bonnie added it

I am sure it is well-written, but I simply could not get into it. Not my style...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Feb 07, 2012

Rita rated it:

I'm not going to tell you what this book is about - plenty of other reviews spend more than enough time on that already as it is, seems redundant to me if you ask me when we already have a book description on the book-page :P I will tell you this though: this book is a frightful example of where genetic experimentation might take us in a not so distant future, if the genetic scientists continue to go down the path that they have been on for two decades, or more.

This books makes me w More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 11, 2007

R. rated it:

1. The novelization of Talking Heads' Fear of Music.

2. Not a little of Neil Patrick Harris circa Starship Troopers in Crake.

3. He'd been unhappy too, of course. It went without saying, his unhappiness. He'd put a lot of energy into it. (pgs. 71-72)

4. Docked a WHOLE STAR for that vague-ass ending. Up to that point, that last page, it was a five star read.

5. Sadly, Alex the parrot died in Sept. 2007: Alex died quickly. He had a sudden, unexpe More...

6 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 18, 2008

Lori rated it:

I thought I had read this before, but I hadn't really - I had skimmed it. Wasn't the right time - after my son was born in 96 I had been far too vulnerable and avoided all dystopian literature. It seems this year I am again ready as I'll ever be - The Road, then this!

This was even better than The Handmaid's Tale. Funny as hell yet dark and foreboding because this future has already started, not just scientifically but the path humans follow is utterly within our nature and more than More...

9 comments like (8 people liked it)

Oct 20, 2010

Synesthesia rated it:

Uh, this is getting a bit squicky.

I'm having a hard time putting this book down. It's been a while since that has happened. I really must stop reading it and work but it's so good.

I don't know how to feel about this book. I finished reading it so I'm re-reading it in between other books but the idea of a post-Apocalyptic world is so upsetting to me to put it mildly. All I can do is go, scientists, please do not destroy the world or give everyone some kind of disease becau More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Dec 01, 2010

Barb rated it:

The thing that creeps me out the most about this story, is just how plausible it is. It's really not a stretch to say that in the not-so-distant future the world will be run by giant corporations, and science will cross over ethical boundaries in pursuit of profit for said corporations. It kind of makes me sad ... and somewhat afraid of the grocery store.
I enjoyed reading this book for her prose, the well written characters, and the questions it raised about the current state of our soci More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2008

Colin rated it:

No other genre has ideas that blow me away by their sheer creativity and in their butchered execution than science fiction. Amid plot clichés, bad dialogue, monstrously superfluous text, made-up technology solutions, and the flat-out lack of effort sci-fi writers put in to a genre that should be the most innovative—sacrificing cohesiveness for whim, new territory for old innovation cum stale sci-fi law, relying on the fan base to simply buy everything—one subgenre has remained faithful to good s More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Oct 22, 2009

karen rated it:

eh.

bore-x and crake. this is a very all right book. i was just unwowed by it. initially, i liked the pacing of the book, and the way the story was spooling out between the present and past, doling its secrets out in dribs and drabs. but the characters just seemed so flimsy, and i was ultimately left with more questions than explanations. and the cutesy futuristic products and consumer culture bits are best left in the hands of a george saunders, not the queen of the long pen. however More...

18 comments like (42 people liked it)

Jun 26, 2009

Julie rated it:

Revision, 6.26.09: Not that it's that important, but I have changed my rating to 3 stars. The more I thought about it . . . and I'm sure Margaret Atwood will survive the disappointment.

Not since Beloved have I read a book that was so well done but so depressing that I could hardly continue at many points. I thought of giving it 3 stars just because of the sheer misery of the story, but, of course, this is Margaret Atwood, and both the quality of the writing and the details of the sto More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 03, 2008

Danika rated it:

This book took me FOREVER to get through. Normally, I love Margaret Atwood, but I never really got into this book. It's post-apocalyptic and deals with issues around genetic modification. Interesting topic, and I wound up sticking with it until the end, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it. Maybe it was just me as every one else seems to rate it pretty highly.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 13, 2010

Adrienne rated it:

This is the first Atwood book I've picked up. I began reading it over Christmas break, and am determined to finish it this summer despite loosing interest in it when I was too busy to read in the springtime. The subject matter is a bit depressing, the characters are not extremely likable, yet Atwood's descriptive storytelling does keep things moving... The book starts in the middle of the end, and then flashes back and forward to fill in the gaps. There is a lesson here about human beings in More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 14, 2009

Jennifer rated it:

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

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 16, 2009

Rebecca rated it:

I am calling complete, and total, bullshit.

There are so many things wrong with this book that it's hard to know where to begin. For starters, the idea of having a couple of different timelines going at once, and shift tenses according--present tense for the present, regular past tenses for the past--causes some serious grammatical problems, and is an utter BS plot device. I'm not a huge fan of telling a story through flashbacks, but it can be done reasonably while retaining proper g More...

2 comments like (20 people liked it)

Jan 22, 2011

Trisha rated it:

wow, one of those stories that you read and think "did I really like that?" and then, you take a day or two and you keep thinking about it. it invades your dreams and thoughts and you find yourself telling other people about the book. It just gets under your skin.

I'd read the 2nd one for a book club and was so disappointed to see that there was a companion novel. But, now that I've read them both, I think I'm okay with order I read them. I identified much more with the femal More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 17, 2012

Preeti rated it:

This showed up as available on my ebooks account at the library so I decided to read it right away or I'd lose my spot on the waiting list. I didn't quite know what to expect - I'd just read a short description of the book a while back, which I reread before starting the book.

At first, it was a bit confusing but the story is told in presence-tense interspersed with flashbacks so we learn what transpired in the past.

Initially I wasn't sure I was really into the story but as I More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 18, 2007

Amanda rated it:

Atwood is very good at painting a scary yet plausible parallel universe. If you haven't read this, add it to the top of your list.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)