After hearing about The Handmaid's Tale from several people, I finally read it last year. It was okay, not my favorite, but it made me want to read something else by Margaret Atwood. John heard about the Maddaddam trilogy, and it sounded interesting, so I read all three books earlier this year. Then I heard that Margaret Atwood was coming to Omaha, so I figured we would go hear her talk, and then I'd write up a whole post about that, including my thoughts on these books. But then life got in the way and I had another commitment at the same time, so we didn't end up going. Oh well, I can still write up a little review of the books, without too much detail, because I don't want to spoil anything.
The short summary is that these books are about a dystopian, not-too-distant, and not-too-unrealistic future. Unlike some other dystopian novels, this future seemed somewhat likely, which was unsettling, but also made me care more about what would happen.
Oryx and Crake follows Jimmy in the post-apocolyptic times, and flashes back to his childhood, and the explanation of what happened, as far as he knows. There were times where I really had no idea what was going on, but I liked it. I think Atwood did a good job of letting me know just enough to keep me hooked, and then filling in the blanks as we went along. And the ending made me NEED to read the next book AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!
The Year of the Flood picks up with completely different characters alternating chapters. Ren and Toby - who are women, but I thought they were men, because of their names (Like I have room to talk). Cue freakout! I need to know what happens to my friends from the previous book! But it's okay, because it fills in more of the blanks of what happened, and I was pretty sure it would link up with the first book at some point.
MaddAddam was my favorite of the 3 books, probably because I was so invested at this point, and it gave me the closure that I needed! I can't say much about it without ruining the plots of the previous two books, so I'll just leave it.
Overall, if you are into post-apocalyptic, dystopian, sci-fi novels, you should probably check these out. In the meantime, I'm going to pick up The Blind Assassin and see if Atwood can impress me again.
Have you read these books? What did you think?
I have read the handmaid's tale and the blind assassin and loved them both. I will have to check out the trilogy for sure.
ReplyDeleteOoooh I will have to check these out, I am totally into dystopian novels and liked the Handmaid's Tale.
ReplyDeleteI DEFINITELY need to read these - The Handmaid's Tale was one of the books I read last summer, and I really liked it. I'm really into dystopian, post-apocalyptic literature, so these sound right up my alley!
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