Oryx and Crake by Margaret Eleanor Atwood

Oryx and Crake (The MaddAddam Trilogy, #1)

by Margaret Eleanor Atwood

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The first volume in the internationally acclaimed MaddAddam trilogy is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future—from the bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments

Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey—with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake—through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining.

Reviewed by brokentune on

4 of 5 stars

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4*

This is a combined review of the trilogy. Well, not so much a review as just a few thoughts.

"But hatred and viciousness are addictive. You can get high on them. Once you've had a little, you start shaking if you don't get more."

When Oryx & Crake was first published, I could not put it down. It was my first Atwood, none of my friends knew about her (I was still at uni at the time) and people thought I was on the crazy train when it didn't win the Booker.

Strangely, my impressions of Oryx & Crake kept me from reading the other two books in the trilogy as soon as they were published, and I only managed to remedy this over the past couple of months.
I kinda wish I hadn't. Not that Year of the Flood and MaddAddam were bad books - the writing was exquisite - but they did not hold the same punch as O&C which is basically "Snowman, the Jimmy"s story.
Being Snowman, the story is slightly mad and told by a madman. I never really knew whether to believe him or not, and that made reading quite fantastic.

Year of the Flood is basically the companion piece told from the view of Toby, a tough but sane, survivor of the Flood. While Toby's story and the of her fellow survivors is interesting, it merely adds to the existing world that Atwood created in O&C.

MaddAddam stretched this even further. Unfortunately, by this time, I had learned about all I wanted to know about the Flood and the aftermath and the Crakers.

By the end, I was only wondering why we needed book 3 at all? I wish she had rolled books 2 and 3

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  • 19 July, 2012: Reviewed