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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Better than Oryx and Crake. More likeable characters that I cared more about
slow-paced
i think that i liked this book about ten times more than oryx & crake. i enjoyed all of the characters and their storylines whereas reading O&C i got bored several times going back and forth between them and jimmy the snowman. reading YOTF almost made me believe that this was the book to read first, not oryx & crake. it's so much more robust and well-thought out.
atwood did such a great job of building the drama, keeping me interested, and ending it on a cliffhanger. i get the feeling that there's more to the story after this.
i must admit that i did skip over all the gardeners' hymns because i just wanted to get to the action. next time i read it i won't skip them :) another well-written and brilliantly conceived novel from atwood.
atwood did such a great job of building the drama, keeping me interested, and ending it on a cliffhanger. i get the feeling that there's more to the story after this.
i must admit that i did skip over all the gardeners' hymns because i just wanted to get to the action. next time i read it i won't skip them :) another well-written and brilliantly conceived novel from atwood.
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I think this was my least favorite of Atwood's books so far. The fact that it still gets three stars should say something about how I feel about her writing, though.
This book felt too disjointed to me. I had a hard time getting into the storylines when it kept jumping from Toby to Ren to Adam One every short chapter. I wasn't into the Gardener philosophy stuff or the hymns. I get where Atwood was coming from with this, and I understand that she was trying to create a whole alternate "world" for all of this stuff, with a CD available with the hymns set to music, etc., but it just wasn't for me.
The plot tie-ins with Oryx and Crake also seemed a bit forced -- in particular the characters of Jimmy and Glenn. While they were well developed in Oryx and Crake, I felt like they still needed to be able to stand on their own in The Year of the Flood, and they seemed rather sketchy and peripheral. You never did really figure out their motivations or back-stories, and I don't think the reader should be expected to have read one book before the other (and necessarily remember all of the details) in order for it to make sense, since these books aren't really billed as part of a series.
Finally, I didn't like the way the loose ends were left at the end of the book. Again, this parallels Oryx and Crake, and it's a fair enough decision on the part of the author, but to bring together certain elements, such as having a bunch of Gardeners reuniting in a very unlikely way and bringing Jimmy back, and then leave the rest of the story hanging, felt to me like the book was finishing halfway through where the story should have ended. It's Atwood's decision, but it left me feeling frustrated. Maybe she plans to pick the story back up in another book -- who knows. I'd read it.
This book felt too disjointed to me. I had a hard time getting into the storylines when it kept jumping from Toby to Ren to Adam One every short chapter. I wasn't into the Gardener philosophy stuff or the hymns. I get where Atwood was coming from with this, and I understand that she was trying to create a whole alternate "world" for all of this stuff, with a CD available with the hymns set to music, etc., but it just wasn't for me.
The plot tie-ins with Oryx and Crake also seemed a bit forced -- in particular the characters of Jimmy and Glenn. While they were well developed in Oryx and Crake, I felt like they still needed to be able to stand on their own in The Year of the Flood, and they seemed rather sketchy and peripheral. You never did really figure out their motivations or back-stories, and I don't think the reader should be expected to have read one book before the other (and necessarily remember all of the details) in order for it to make sense, since these books aren't really billed as part of a series.
Finally, I didn't like the way the loose ends were left at the end of the book. Again, this parallels Oryx and Crake, and it's a fair enough decision on the part of the author, but to bring together certain elements, such as having a bunch of Gardeners reuniting in a very unlikely way and bringing Jimmy back, and then leave the rest of the story hanging, felt to me like the book was finishing halfway through where the story should have ended. It's Atwood's decision, but it left me feeling frustrated. Maybe she plans to pick the story back up in another book -- who knows. I'd read it.
When I read the last page, I wanted to turn back to chapter 1 and read it again. I just plain loved this book, her writing, the world she's created, everything.
adventurous
challenging
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
The amount of time it took me to read this is not reflective of the quality, i've just been really preoccupied. I for the most part really loved this follow up to the first book in the series. Though the sermon / song interludes weren't my jam.