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laerugo's review against another edition
4.0
so, huh. this sure was a book.
i read this over about five days on vacation and i feel like i aged ten years. when i finished and went back to reality i felt like i was emerging from a dark cave starving and haggard after several years of isolation. i guess i should clarify that these are all good things: i like that i had such a visceral reaction to this book and its themes. i like the dark elements. i like that it made me seriously think and question and engage and read between the lines.
every piece of info about this universe i lapped up like a sponge. how humans evolved (or rather, didn't) and the earth changed for the worse. how games like 'extinctathon' and 'blood and roses' did not just exist, but were explained to us frankly and simply as though they were as innocent as uno. i LOVED that shit. i felt like i was reading about us in 30 years, and part of me hated it for that. i hated how it felt realistic, and i hated that i KNEW it was realistic, but i loved it for that anyway. heavy-handed and a little obnoxious at times, yeah, but it's atwood, so i kind of knew what i was signing up for.
i still felt conflicted about jimmy (i separate him from snowman; snowman, i just felt sorry for), but after finishing i think i WAS meant to find issues with him. he was meant to be flawed (and lazy, and prone to playing the victim, and arguably pretty sexist) because he's the everyday man. he's the reason there's a story at all, because he is the closest atwood could get to a 'normal' person in consumerist privilege: someone who acknowledges things are wrong, who sees death and trauma and abuse behind every company that flashes bright lights at the mall, but who still buys and eats and sells their soul to them anyway. but i don't think this is a story about consumerism: i think this is about how jimmy is normal because he sees what's wrong but refuses to change. he, like most of us, take the path of least resistance, even when we know the world is changing and something will have to give sooner or later. (i mean, i should also probably comment on how all of these things could've been possible to show without starring a kind of boring, privileged man as the protagonist, but i get what she was aiming for. i get that that was kind of the POINT. or at least i interpret it was.)
and i gotta say it, i'm fascinated by crake. i do not woobify him; he was a fucked-up genocidal mad scientist with a god complex. he had ONE FRIEND in the entire universe and based his 'solution' to the homo sapiens problem on data and analytics instead of genuine human interaction. he was more interested in his own ideas of a perfect, sustainable dominant species on earth than the moral reality of what would have to occur to make it happen (he didn't even want to deal with the consequences of what came after!). (i was honestly a little surprised when i saw other readers had labeled him as a moc; his arrogance and attitude read like a peak white man, to me. but to each their own; i submit that in the future most people would be mixed by then anyway (even though as a compound kids he was noticeably still rich and privileged; i don't think there was meant to be a racial element to that, but i read one in it anyway.)) and yet, crake fascinates me. i guess he's like the first example of an anti villain i've actually wanted to see more of. i almost want to call him glenn for the same reason harry calls voldemort 'tom.' he doesn't deserve an awesome, mythological name, but CRAKE REALLY DOES SOUND A LOT COOLER THAN GLENN lmao. but anyway i really will be a little disappointed if he isn't in any of the sequels.
what i didn't like was little, but still enough to drop this review down a star.
1) atwood really talks too much sometimes. i don't care to complain about it most of the time because often i like her humor or style enough to tolerate some redundant or unnecessary paragraphs, but some parts really could've used trimming.
2a) everything about oryx, and here's where i really can't overlook this like i can for the above. oryx was the only female character given any narrative weight or presence. she's an asian woman some (approximately 7-8?) years younger than both of the main male characters, jimmy and crake. they are both in love with her because they saw her in a porn video when she was eight and have held a low-key obsession with her into adulthood. and oryx... has like... no personality. if you told me a female author known for her feminist theology wrote the character of oryx, i wouldn't have believed you. (a white feminist author? makes more sense.) oryx reads like every mpdg a lonely male author gives his lonely horney male protagonist whose role in the story will inevitably be to ~remind him he's human~ and teach him to ~embrace life~ and shit. she giggles and says things like "oh jimmy, you're so funny" and makes him feel like a Real Boy. like, no real woman talks and thinks like this. real women have lives outside of the men in their professional 'sphere (or they shouldn't revolve around them, at least). is this characterization of oryx meant to reflect badly on jimmy? snowman admits that he himself had been part of the problem: oryx represented everybody that was hurt by this system, the people that fell through the cracks and were systematically abused. in jimmy's eyes, atwood’s depiction of this woman probably IS all she is to him, an obsession, not a real person. it's about what she represents to him, not who she is or what she actually wants (she... doesn't want much of anything, really. thanks, atwood).
2b) oryx's way of talking and communicating makes a little more sense when i remember that english is not her first language so inevitably some of her dialogue will sound strange and likely cliche. but that brings me to another thing: she's an (east? south east?) asian woman and of course her biggest defining characterization is the fact that she was sold into sex slavery. of course she was a wide-eyed little asian girl and two western teenage boys immediately fell in love with her and it lasts up to 20 years later (what...?). of course she shakes her slavery off as an adult and jimmy is more bothered by it than she is, and atwood doesn't touch the trauma that would inevitably linger into adulthood. "oh jimmy, you should be thanking the man who brought me to america. it brought us together, didn't it?" just gag me. look, i WANT to believe that oryx is actually three-dimensional and maybe was just saying this shit to keep jimmy placated. maybe she deflected his questions and played a role that it didn’t bother her, not maliciously, just because she was lonely or bored or didn’t want to talk about her past (because it’s none of jimmy’s business, really). it’s possible -- likely -- he was just a fling and she didn’t really love him and she had her own reasons for sleeping with jimmy and crake at the same time. maybe she was just an unkind person to do that to both of them. not a nice thought, but that would’ve made her real. but we don’t know, because we never get any glimpse of a serious, relatable personality from her before she dies gruesomely and miserable and manipulated for crake’s genocidal fantasy.
and blah blah. rant over. the rest of my comments are mostly praise, because like i said above, i really did enjoy it. but it’s probably not anything anybody hasn't already said about this one before.
and that's all i've got for now. i think i've effectively squeezed my brain dry on this one. i've already reserved 'the year of the flood' and 'maddaddam' at the library, so i guess i'm hooked, but with atwood, i'm sleeping with one eye open from now on.
i read this over about five days on vacation and i feel like i aged ten years. when i finished and went back to reality i felt like i was emerging from a dark cave starving and haggard after several years of isolation. i guess i should clarify that these are all good things: i like that i had such a visceral reaction to this book and its themes. i like the dark elements. i like that it made me seriously think and question and engage and read between the lines.
every piece of info about this universe i lapped up like a sponge. how humans evolved (or rather, didn't) and the earth changed for the worse. how games like 'extinctathon' and 'blood and roses' did not just exist, but were explained to us frankly and simply as though they were as innocent as uno. i LOVED that shit. i felt like i was reading about us in 30 years, and part of me hated it for that. i hated how it felt realistic, and i hated that i KNEW it was realistic, but i loved it for that anyway. heavy-handed and a little obnoxious at times, yeah, but it's atwood, so i kind of knew what i was signing up for.
i still felt conflicted about jimmy (i separate him from snowman; snowman, i just felt sorry for), but after finishing i think i WAS meant to find issues with him. he was meant to be flawed (and lazy, and prone to playing the victim, and arguably pretty sexist) because he's the everyday man. he's the reason there's a story at all, because he is the closest atwood could get to a 'normal' person in consumerist privilege: someone who acknowledges things are wrong, who sees death and trauma and abuse behind every company that flashes bright lights at the mall, but who still buys and eats and sells their soul to them anyway. but i don't think this is a story about consumerism: i think this is about how jimmy is normal because he sees what's wrong but refuses to change. he, like most of us, take the path of least resistance, even when we know the world is changing and something will have to give sooner or later. (i mean, i should also probably comment on how all of these things could've been possible to show without starring a kind of boring, privileged man as the protagonist, but i get what she was aiming for. i get that that was kind of the POINT. or at least i interpret it was.)
and i gotta say it, i'm fascinated by crake. i do not woobify him; he was a fucked-up genocidal mad scientist with a god complex. he had ONE FRIEND in the entire universe and based his 'solution' to the homo sapiens problem on data and analytics instead of genuine human interaction. he was more interested in his own ideas of a perfect, sustainable dominant species on earth than the moral reality of what would have to occur to make it happen (he didn't even want to deal with the consequences of what came after!). (i was honestly a little surprised when i saw other readers had labeled him as a moc; his arrogance and attitude read like a peak white man, to me. but to each their own; i submit that in the future most people would be mixed by then anyway (even though as a compound kids he was noticeably still rich and privileged; i don't think there was meant to be a racial element to that, but i read one in it anyway.)) and yet, crake fascinates me. i guess he's like the first example of an anti villain i've actually wanted to see more of. i almost want to call him glenn for the same reason harry calls voldemort 'tom.' he doesn't deserve an awesome, mythological name, but CRAKE REALLY DOES SOUND A LOT COOLER THAN GLENN lmao. but anyway i really will be a little disappointed if he isn't in any of the sequels.
what i didn't like was little, but still enough to drop this review down a star.
1) atwood really talks too much sometimes. i don't care to complain about it most of the time because often i like her humor or style enough to tolerate some redundant or unnecessary paragraphs, but some parts really could've used trimming.
2a) everything about oryx, and here's where i really can't overlook this like i can for the above. oryx was the only female character given any narrative weight or presence. she's an asian woman some (approximately 7-8?) years younger than both of the main male characters, jimmy and crake. they are both in love with her because they saw her in a porn video when she was eight and have held a low-key obsession with her into adulthood. and oryx... has like... no personality. if you told me a female author known for her feminist theology wrote the character of oryx, i wouldn't have believed you. (a white feminist author? makes more sense.) oryx reads like every mpdg a lonely male author gives his lonely horney male protagonist whose role in the story will inevitably be to ~remind him he's human~ and teach him to ~embrace life~ and shit. she giggles and says things like "oh jimmy, you're so funny" and makes him feel like a Real Boy. like, no real woman talks and thinks like this. real women have lives outside of the men in their professional 'sphere (or they shouldn't revolve around them, at least). is this characterization of oryx meant to reflect badly on jimmy? snowman admits that he himself had been part of the problem: oryx represented everybody that was hurt by this system, the people that fell through the cracks and were systematically abused. in jimmy's eyes, atwood’s depiction of this woman probably IS all she is to him, an obsession, not a real person. it's about what she represents to him, not who she is or what she actually wants (she... doesn't want much of anything, really. thanks, atwood).
2b) oryx's way of talking and communicating makes a little more sense when i remember that english is not her first language so inevitably some of her dialogue will sound strange and likely cliche. but that brings me to another thing: she's an (east? south east?) asian woman and of course her biggest defining characterization is the fact that she was sold into sex slavery. of course she was a wide-eyed little asian girl and two western teenage boys immediately fell in love with her and it lasts up to 20 years later (what...?). of course she shakes her slavery off as an adult and jimmy is more bothered by it than she is, and atwood doesn't touch the trauma that would inevitably linger into adulthood. "oh jimmy, you should be thanking the man who brought me to america. it brought us together, didn't it?" just gag me. look, i WANT to believe that oryx is actually three-dimensional and maybe was just saying this shit to keep jimmy placated. maybe she deflected his questions and played a role that it didn’t bother her, not maliciously, just because she was lonely or bored or didn’t want to talk about her past (because it’s none of jimmy’s business, really). it’s possible -- likely -- he was just a fling and she didn’t really love him and she had her own reasons for sleeping with jimmy and crake at the same time. maybe she was just an unkind person to do that to both of them. not a nice thought, but that would’ve made her real. but we don’t know, because we never get any glimpse of a serious, relatable personality from her before she dies gruesomely and miserable and manipulated for crake’s genocidal fantasy.
and blah blah. rant over. the rest of my comments are mostly praise, because like i said above, i really did enjoy it. but it’s probably not anything anybody hasn't already said about this one before.
and that's all i've got for now. i think i've effectively squeezed my brain dry on this one. i've already reserved 'the year of the flood' and 'maddaddam' at the library, so i guess i'm hooked, but with atwood, i'm sleeping with one eye open from now on.
avesmaria's review against another edition
5.0
Really enjoyed this one. Oryx and Crake is the story of humanity in a future rife with engineered animals, engineered pandemics, and a stratified society with a huge division of wealth, power, and technology, told through several flashbacks by Snowman, the main character. I think this is one of the more believable visions of the future I've ever read. Atwood's writing is, as always, dreamy and enveloping, and I felt totally pulled into the world and the characters' doomed dramas by the end of the book. I thought the deliberate analogies to the Old (and New) Testament throughout added a great conceptual depth to the story, too. Can't wait to read the next book in the series!
mcumoletti's review against another edition
5.0
so different from anything I've ever read...possibly my favorite book....ever?!
oxnard_montalvo's review against another edition
5.0
Run away winner. Can't find any fault with the story line or writing style. I picked this up randomly the summer before I started university and devoured it. Imaginative and clever, I can't imagine I'll ever tire of rereading it.
gretchenp's review against another edition
3.0
I held in there, relatively intrigued, but the ending? Total letdown.
slb80's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
smateer73's review against another edition
3.0
This book was weird and horrifying, it will make you think about the depravity of humanity but in a way that gives no solution, no remedy, not even a clear moral.
The parts with Jimmy were more interesting than the Snowman ones, but overall I felt the whole book was just about sex and control. Maybe that’s the point? Men are awful because they’re driven only by sex? I mean, true, but is that it? The book simultaneously dragged on and utterly disturbed me, I probably wouldn’t have finished it if not because I was reading it for school. Compared to the Handmaids Tale, this was much less interesting and compelling. It does give some insights into human behavior and what playing at being God will get you. I’m honestly not sure if this book was good or not.
The parts with Jimmy were more interesting than the Snowman ones, but overall I felt the whole book was just about sex and control. Maybe that’s the point? Men are awful because they’re driven only by sex? I mean, true, but is that it? The book simultaneously dragged on and utterly disturbed me, I probably wouldn’t have finished it if not because I was reading it for school. Compared to the Handmaids Tale, this was much less interesting and compelling. It does give some insights into human behavior and what playing at being God will get you. I’m honestly not sure if this book was good or not.
jmschwartz's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
brisingr's review against another edition
3.0
3 for now, will continue on with the series to figure out exactly how i feel about the full story