Review: The Year of the Flood

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

I liked this book a lot more than the first one, and to be honest I liked the first one a lot more once I had the perspective of this book. I was pretty generous with my 3 star rating of Oryx and Crake mostly because of how much it made me think, and continues to make me think, but this book really earned it's 4 stars, and I liked it in it's own right.

I really enjoyed the different points of view of Toby and Ren. It was a little bit confusing at first, trying to figure out the timeline and characters, but it really brought the world to life. I thought there was some interesting religious points brought up by the gardeners, but most importantly I think that this book really showed Jimmy/Snowman's character. All of the characters went through similar, traumatic events, and lived through what was essentially almost the end to the human race. In the first book we see Jimmy sinking into himself, and wholeheartedly believing his is the last human on earth. He thinks that there is no way that anyone else could have survived. On the other hand Ren has no reason whatsoever to believe that anyone else has survived let alone Amanda, the one person she reached out to. But she believes that it is possible. Then Toby who is somewhere between the two, she feels like the last person, but she wants to believe that Zeb survived. She *wants* to believe, but she isn't always able. I really enjoyed seeing Jimmy/Snowman from Ren's perspective, as well as seeing his story as seen by others. It shows that he really is just a misogynistic, narcissistic, low life, that has an inflated scene of his own importance and worth. It was this, I think, that made both books better. The perspective change. I know that I questioned in a review or Oryx and Crake if something was how Jimmy saw things, or how the author saw them, and I am very pleased that this book answers that question. 

If you have read Oryx and Crake you must go and get this book right now because you are missing out if you don't!

The Year of the Flood on Goodreads

My review on Goodreds