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The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam Trilogy, Book 2)
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments—the second book of the internationally celebrated MaddAddam trilogy, set in the visionary world of Oryx and Crake, is at once a moving tale of lasting friendship…
- Release Date
- 2009
- Length
- 456 pages
- Publisher
- Vintage
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Our Review
About the book
The second book of Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy follows Toby and Ren, two women connected to the God’s Gardeners, an eco-religious sect, as they survive a pandemic that wipes out most of humanity. It covers the same period as Oryx and Crake from a different vantage point.
Our review
Atwood’s apocalypse seen from the ground up, warmer and stranger than its predecessor and just as unsettling.
Where Oryx and Crake looked at catastrophe from inside the gated compounds, this novel lives in the pleeblands, among the poor, the exploited and a band of vegetarian believers. Toby and Ren are vivid, resilient narrators, and their parallel stories slowly tighten toward the events of the first book. Atwood’s satire of corporate security, gene-spliced animals and branded everything is as sharp as ever, and the God’s Gardeners’ hymns and saints’ days are both funny and oddly touching.
The structure takes patience. The hymns and sermons break up the narrative, and the time jumps between past and present can blur in the middle. Readers who haven’t read Oryx and Crake will miss a lot of resonance, and the book’s ending sets up the sequel more than it resolves itself. The world it depicts, though, feels more plausible every year, and the women at its center are some of Atwood’s best.
What we loved
- Two memorable, resilient narrators
- Sharp, darkly funny satire of corporate power
- A fresh perspective on events from Oryx and Crake
Keep in mind
- Hymns and sermons interrupt the pace
- Works best after reading Oryx and Crake
Read it if you like
Readers who loved Oryx and Crake, Station Eleven or Parable of the Sower.
The verdict
A richer, more humane middle book that deepens the trilogy. Start with Oryx and Crake first.
