The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam #2)

One of the few times I would say the audio book is better than the printed page. It\’s true . . . the \”cheesy\” music fits the parodical lyrics perfectly. I wanted to read it again immediately, but was afraid I would never leave M.A.\’s world. As well-done as Handmaid\’s Tale or her other masterpieces – and the parody/irony/humor is so dry you\’ll need moisturizer when you are forced to stop listening and participate in real life.

I loved Oryx and Crake. This book is to O&C like Ender\’s Shadow is to Ender\’s Game. It\’s the same story from another point of view. Instead of telling the story from within the corporation compounds, it is told from the point of view of the plebe lands and concentrates around the God\’s Gardeners group. I found it easier to identify with Jimmy in O&C, as I am a word person in a tetchy world, a bit worried about where this world is going. The extreme nature of the God\’s Gardeners green cult is harder to identify with. I love nostalgia and meeting the characters from O&C again was allot of fun. I did think Atwood laid the references to O&C a little too thick. We meet just about every character we knew, event\’s from Oryx and Crake are alluded to in very high detail. For example if in O&C Jimmy tells how a girl caught him reading her diary, then in The Year of the Flood you meet this girl and she describes the event down to how many times she underlined different words in the message she wrote him. I may be too sensitive to this because I made sure to reread O&C before starting the Year of the Flood. But this is the main reason I\’m deducting one star from my rating for this book. I really enjoyed The Year of the Flood, it was allot of fun to revisit the O&C world. The only thing wrong with it is that like many sequels it doesn\’t match the brilliance of the original.

This book was a wonderful surprise! I had read Oryx and Krake multiple times and was left wanting me after the ending. This book is not a sequel, but rather covers the same period of time but from the point of views of different characters in a totally different situation. I didn\’t know that when I picked it up, and when I realized that is what it was, I was thrilled. It is not necessary to have read O&K to enjoy this one, nor is it necessary to read one before the other. I don\’t think I have ever ran into this kind of story-telling, and it was a very satisfying experience. Like O&K, there are some racy (raunchy) parts and language I could have done without, but the dystopian story captured my imagination.

Everything about this audiobook is top notch: the story, the narrators, the characterization. Atwood at her best.

I listened to this book and Margaret Atwood is one of my favorite authors. I also administer an Atwood Group on Shelfari. However, it took me over 30 chapters (into the second part) before I could make heads or tails. As someone else said, it is worth it eventually. I could probably go back and read it again and it would be more meaningful and less confusing. In the audio version, there is singing throughout (about every 10 chapters. I discovered that it comes at the end of a chapter, so you can move ahead and skip it. I kind of got used to it in the end and didn\’t even bother turning it off. I really do think if I listened to it again that it would hold up because the characters are all worth listening to. I would use Levenger\’s advice in the Little Guide to a Well Read Life and read along on my iPhone Kindle application.

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