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A review by marsius
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
4.0
Like Oryx and Crake before it, it's hard to rate The Year of the Flood in large part because it is so clearly part of a larger story that it's difficult to give it a rating in a vacuum. Indeed, in telling a parallel story to Oryx and Crake, Atwood does little here to actually advance the MaddAddam story, which is somewhat frustrating, particularly when you consider that Oryx and Crake, too, was not a complete story, but rather built to its climax and left it on the precipice.
That said, within the confines of what it is, The Year of the Flood is quite good. Atwood's pre-collapse corporatized world remains just as extreme and ridiculous as in Oryx and Crake, but that is just as good a thing here as there; in being so out there, I was able to appreciate the world according to its own rules without attempting to rationalize and compare it to reality. After the corporate compound insider view with Jimmy in the previous book, I also appreciated the choice of outsiders to the corporations as the points of view here. I was somewhat disappointed at first in the choice of isolationist cult members as those viewpoints, but I ultimately came to appreciate the choice. Few things are worse than when an author with a ridiculous world attempts to explain that world. In the choice of religious fundamentalists here, the reader is able to experience the world without having to handle questions of how it got there, and that is ultimately a good thing.
Unfortunately, though, this review, like the book, cannot be complete without finishing the trilogy, so off we go to the next book. Eventually. Not sure how much Atwood I can really handle back-to-back.
That said, within the confines of what it is, The Year of the Flood is quite good. Atwood's pre-collapse corporatized world remains just as extreme and ridiculous as in Oryx and Crake, but that is just as good a thing here as there; in being so out there, I was able to appreciate the world according to its own rules without attempting to rationalize and compare it to reality. After the corporate compound insider view with Jimmy in the previous book, I also appreciated the choice of outsiders to the corporations as the points of view here. I was somewhat disappointed at first in the choice of isolationist cult members as those viewpoints, but I ultimately came to appreciate the choice. Few things are worse than when an author with a ridiculous world attempts to explain that world. In the choice of religious fundamentalists here, the reader is able to experience the world without having to handle questions of how it got there, and that is ultimately a good thing.
Unfortunately, though, this review, like the book, cannot be complete without finishing the trilogy, so off we go to the next book. Eventually. Not sure how much Atwood I can really handle back-to-back.