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A review by ejrathke
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
Abandoning this at about the midway point.
I don't know what I wanted out of this sequel, but it wasn't this. It reminds me of shows like Lost, in very specific ways. Lost was (in)famous for its constant flashbacks. It's something that became pretty tedious and a real narrative problem as the series went on, since they seemed so married to their decision to make half of every episode happen in the past. Or, maybe a better example: we abandoned the TV adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale during its second season because it just kept giving us more and more flashbacks to the point that I felt they didn't actually have a story to tell anymore. Or The Gentlemen Bastards Series, which has spent about as much time on the characters' childhoods as it has on their present adventures.
What I'm trying to say is that this novel is tied to the same structure as Oryx and Crake. That being, a constant diving back into the past, into childhood, with only a few moments here and there in the present. While I think this worked well enough in Oryx and Crake, by the second book I'm no longer that interested in the backstory of the world that was already meticulously established in the first volume. Like, is this a world that needs to be more fleshed out to be understood?
I would say it very much does not need additional fleshing out. And so I found the book to be somewhat tedious. The cult is interesting and pleasant enough, but I'm just not interested in a retelling of the first novel from someone else's perspective. And, honestly, if that's all you have to offer...
So, yes, pretty disappointed here. I had high hopes for this trilogy.
I don't know what I wanted out of this sequel, but it wasn't this. It reminds me of shows like Lost, in very specific ways. Lost was (in)famous for its constant flashbacks. It's something that became pretty tedious and a real narrative problem as the series went on, since they seemed so married to their decision to make half of every episode happen in the past. Or, maybe a better example: we abandoned the TV adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale during its second season because it just kept giving us more and more flashbacks to the point that I felt they didn't actually have a story to tell anymore. Or The Gentlemen Bastards Series, which has spent about as much time on the characters' childhoods as it has on their present adventures.
What I'm trying to say is that this novel is tied to the same structure as Oryx and Crake. That being, a constant diving back into the past, into childhood, with only a few moments here and there in the present. While I think this worked well enough in Oryx and Crake, by the second book I'm no longer that interested in the backstory of the world that was already meticulously established in the first volume. Like, is this a world that needs to be more fleshed out to be understood?
I would say it very much does not need additional fleshing out. And so I found the book to be somewhat tedious. The cult is interesting and pleasant enough, but I'm just not interested in a retelling of the first novel from someone else's perspective. And, honestly, if that's all you have to offer...
So, yes, pretty disappointed here. I had high hopes for this trilogy.