A review by wellworn_soles
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

2.0

2 stars. I technically read the first book after the second, but the two novels are parallel and thus do not really spoil or intersect except towards the end. Although this seems to be the better-loved of the two, I much prefer The Year Of The Flood for its varying female cast and its setting. The God’s Gardeners “cult” was a more interesting backdrop to the story than Jimmy’s privileged life in this book. Our main character is a typical sad lonely man with mom issues and an idolizing picture of women that doesn’t allow them to exist as anything beyond two-dimensional caricatures. In the literary world, this is a character type that gets a lot of traction, but I don’t see the appeal. The very final bits of this book were better than the ending of its sequel, but it wasn’t enough to make it a better novel overall.