The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam, #2) in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Oct 20, 2011 jess rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ladyish, fiction, 2011

I picked this up a few days after I finished Oryx & Crake. I was hooked. This book is a parallel novel to O&C. They share a setting, time period, and some characters. However, O&C is the story of people who succeeded in the modern, scary, gene-splicing world. It's the story of the downfall and evolution of champions. Year of the Flood introduces you to down-trodden, victimized, marginalized, ragtag outsiders, Ren and Toby, who manage to, well, not rise up exactly, but at least come into their ow I picked this up a few days after I finished Oryx & Crake. I was hooked. This book is a parallel novel to O&C. They share a setting, time period, and some characters. However, O&C is the story of people who succeeded in the modern, scary, gene-splicing world. It's the story of the downfall and evolution of champions. Year of the Flood introduces you to down-trodden, victimized, marginalized, ragtag outsiders, Ren and Toby, who manage to, well, not rise up exactly, but at least come into their own.

My favorite moment: When Toby calls on the bees to protect her from Blanco. I cringed, thinking of the damage to the hives, but it was still pretty amazing. I mean, have you ever been attacked by a cloud of millions of bees? I hope you never are.

The story of YOTF centers around God's Gardeners, who are an outlying band of impoverished modern-day hippies who keep rooftop gardens and homeschool their children in subjects like foraging for wild foods, beekeeping and vinegar-making. It should come as no surprise that I kind of love the GG with their saints and feasts and preparedness. The story is told by two narrators in alternating chapters. Our narrators are Ren, a young trapeze dancer in a high-end sex club, and Toby, who escaped an abusive life in the fast food industry, and finds herself disguised through plastic surgery and working in a high-end luxurious spa. Both Ren & Toby spent time with God's Gardeners together, and run into each other after the long-feared waterless flood wipes out most of humankind.

I liked this book better than O&C, although that doesn't diminish my feelings for O&C. I preferred the underdogs, the female narrators, and I found the sense of community and optimism to be a more enjoyable read. Since it's the second book, Atwood can be self-referential, circle back to issues from the first book, answer questions, fill in blanks, and she does all of that. There was so much I liked about this book. It really elevated the concepts introduced in O&C. Atwood has constructed a fascinating universe in the MaddAddam trilogy, and I can't wait to read the third book. ...more

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Feb 19, 2017 Isabel Jazmín rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Mención aparte merecen los Pigoons: cerdos modificados con una parte de cerebro similar a la de los seres humanos. Al principio solamente eran vistos como atacantes o como comida pero también evolucionarán. Me recordaron mucho a los pequeninos de "La voz de los muertos" de Orson Scott Card: una raza alienígena con la que los seres humanos deben aprender a convivir.

Toby es uno de los personajes femeninos de ciencia ficción que más me gustan: es valiente pero también demuestra su miedo, es incrédu ...more

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Jul 07, 2013 Leslie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013-reads

Even though I gave this the same star rating as Oryx and Crake, I liked this better (this one is 4.5, Oryx and Crake is 3.5). I could hardly bear to put this one down until I finished it. I found Ren and Toby's viewpoints more interesting than Jimmy's. One of Jimmy's most annoying qualities was his dismissiveness of the women in his life who weren't named Oryx (and his idealization of Oryx was a whole 'nother issue). This book redeemed that (not in him but in the narrative) by taking two women t ...more

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Oct 17, 2013 Majo rated it it was amazing

Whoa! Read this one before Oryx and Crake. I think I like the trilogy better in that order. Plausible dystopia makes the future we're hurtling towards that much scarier. ...more

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