Take a photo of a barcode or cover
timeywriter 's review for:
The Year of the Flood
by Margaret Atwood
The apocalyptic tale that began in Oryx and Crake continues in this novel. Though the previous novel left off with Jimmy/Snowman's journey, this story takes it back to the beginning again to bring other characters out from the depths and into the spotlight.
The Gardeners are seen as a cult to those in the outside world, one that consists of pleebland and compound separatism to represent the lower and higher classes in this dystopian world. Adam One leads the Gardeners though with pleasant tranquility, encouraging vegetarianism and self sustenance away from the highly popular products and technology around them. Adam One also states that they do this to prepare for the Waterless Flood, a great disaster that will befall them soon. For Toby, the Gardeners is an escape from the unwanted life she led as the girl of a pleebland gangster. For Ren, the Gardeners is the only life she has known since her mother brought her to them at a young age. These two women detail their lives before, during, and after being with the Gardeners. With Toby it is a life of learning how to care for bees and create medicinal items with natural resources. And with Ren it is learning about a world away from the Gardeners as she returns to a compound life she never remembered and goes on with school. While many of the characters in this novel seem entirely new, it is slowly uncovered that they had small parts in the previous novel. It makes me wish I had paid attention to the small characters in the previous novel, for then I would have caught more. Still, it was fascinating to read about how Ren's story unfolded alongside Jimmy's. I found both of these women so strong and fascinating, for all the choices they made and how much they persevered. Where Oryx and Crake gave a wide explanation of this MaddAddam world, this novel dove into further details and gave a wider breadth of how the world was before the "Waterless Flood" and after. While Jimmy provided a very narrow selfish vision in the first novel, Ren and Toby give an all encompassing look at the occurrences that befell not just them but the world around them. And once again, just as before, this novel left me wanting to continue on the journey. Though this time, there is more than just Jimmy who has a story to follow.
Atwood has a way of wrapping you in as a reader, enticing you with a world both like and unlike our own that turns upside down. The believability and realism of her fantasy is something I look forward to continue reading.
The Gardeners are seen as a cult to those in the outside world, one that consists of pleebland and compound separatism to represent the lower and higher classes in this dystopian world. Adam One leads the Gardeners though with pleasant tranquility, encouraging vegetarianism and self sustenance away from the highly popular products and technology around them. Adam One also states that they do this to prepare for the Waterless Flood, a great disaster that will befall them soon. For Toby, the Gardeners is an escape from the unwanted life she led as the girl of a pleebland gangster. For Ren, the Gardeners is the only life she has known since her mother brought her to them at a young age. These two women detail their lives before, during, and after being with the Gardeners. With Toby it is a life of learning how to care for bees and create medicinal items with natural resources. And with Ren it is learning about a world away from the Gardeners as she returns to a compound life she never remembered and goes on with school. While many of the characters in this novel seem entirely new, it is slowly uncovered that they had small parts in the previous novel. It makes me wish I had paid attention to the small characters in the previous novel, for then I would have caught more. Still, it was fascinating to read about how Ren's story unfolded alongside Jimmy's. I found both of these women so strong and fascinating, for all the choices they made and how much they persevered. Where Oryx and Crake gave a wide explanation of this MaddAddam world, this novel dove into further details and gave a wider breadth of how the world was before the "Waterless Flood" and after. While Jimmy provided a very narrow selfish vision in the first novel, Ren and Toby give an all encompassing look at the occurrences that befell not just them but the world around them. And once again, just as before, this novel left me wanting to continue on the journey. Though this time, there is more than just Jimmy who has a story to follow.
Atwood has a way of wrapping you in as a reader, enticing you with a world both like and unlike our own that turns upside down. The believability and realism of her fantasy is something I look forward to continue reading.