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A review by victoria_mh
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
3.0
I picked this up not realising it was part of a trilogy - it's not openly labelled as such, and I only twigged part way through reading it that this was a counterpart to 'Oryx and Crake' (which I have since picked up but have yet to read). So I feel I have perhaps missed some context to tie everything together.
I have read other Margaret Atwood books and enjoyed them (in a manner of speaking, because they've all been rather depressing on some level or other); the last one I read was 'The Blind Assassin', several years ago now but I remember that book just 'clicking' with me; there was just the right amount of detail and plot. With 'The Year of the Flood', however, there's almost too much plot going on, while I would have liked more detail in places. Overall, something about this book didn't quite ring true for me. I felt an odd distance from the characters, though I liked the two main characters well enough. I also struggled to get a sense of physical scale - for instance, there's a spa within some grounds that I pictured being like a small park, but at some point characters travel across these grounds and they are vast. Conversely, people seem to able to walk around a city quite quickly. I don't know how much of that was a failure on the author's part versus a failure in my reading comprehension.
The writing seemed very heavy-handed in parts; the naming of some things was silly (CorpSeCorps in particular - a Big Bad but can anyone take that name seriously?); I felt there was a level of smugness or preachiness, of 'don't be too consumerist, kids; now here is another eeeevil corporation'. And I am someone who agrees that many corporations have unethical practices and that we need to take better care of the planet - but there was little subtlety here. It didn't feel like a particularly believable depiction of the future.
The sexual violence - and there's a lot of it - made for very uncomfortable reading, but that was probably the point - and depressingly, when I think about it, it probably is one of the more believable aspects of the dystopia portrayed here. If women aren't safe in a 'stable' society, what hope do we have in one that is falling apart?
One positive is that the book held my interest most of the time, and I read it quite quickly, eager to see how things would turn out - thoughthe ending was strange and inconclusive and I hope things are tied up in 'MaddAddam' (which I plan to get hold of) . Others have mentioned not liking the hymns or sermons interspersed between the main action, and to an extent I agree; they could feel dull and forced when I just wanted to see what would happen next. On the other hand, there was something quite comforting about them in a book that is otherwise full of awful depressing things. Overall I thing they were a positive addition.
I have read other Margaret Atwood books and enjoyed them (in a manner of speaking, because they've all been rather depressing on some level or other); the last one I read was 'The Blind Assassin', several years ago now but I remember that book just 'clicking' with me; there was just the right amount of detail and plot. With 'The Year of the Flood', however, there's almost too much plot going on, while I would have liked more detail in places. Overall, something about this book didn't quite ring true for me. I felt an odd distance from the characters, though I liked the two main characters well enough. I also struggled to get a sense of physical scale - for instance, there's a spa within some grounds that I pictured being like a small park, but at some point characters travel across these grounds and they are vast. Conversely, people seem to able to walk around a city quite quickly. I don't know how much of that was a failure on the author's part versus a failure in my reading comprehension.
The writing seemed very heavy-handed in parts; the naming of some things was silly (CorpSeCorps in particular - a Big Bad but can anyone take that name seriously?); I felt there was a level of smugness or preachiness, of 'don't be too consumerist, kids; now here is another eeeevil corporation'. And I am someone who agrees that many corporations have unethical practices and that we need to take better care of the planet - but there was little subtlety here. It didn't feel like a particularly believable depiction of the future.
The sexual violence - and there's a lot of it - made for very uncomfortable reading, but that was probably the point - and depressingly, when I think about it, it probably is one of the more believable aspects of the dystopia portrayed here. If women aren't safe in a 'stable' society, what hope do we have in one that is falling apart?
One positive is that the book held my interest most of the time, and I read it quite quickly, eager to see how things would turn out - though
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual violence and Sexual assault