Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners - a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, the preservation of all species, the tending of the Earth, and the cultivation of bees and organic crops on flat rooftops - has long predicted the Waterless Flood. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have avoided it: the young trapeze-dancer, Ren, locked into the high-end sex club, Scales and Tails; and former SecretBurgers meat-slinger turned Gardener, Toby, barricaded into the luxurious AnooYoo Spa, where many of the treatments are edible. Have others survived? Ren's bioartist friend Amanda, or the MaddAddam eco-fighters? Ren's one-time teenage lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the CorpSeCorps, the shadowy and corrupt policing force of the ruling powers...Meanwhile, in the natural world, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo'hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue.
As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through a ruined world, singing their devotional hymns and faithful to their creed and to their Saints - Saint Francis Assisi, Saint Rachel Carson, and Saint Al Gore among them - what odds for Ren and Toby, and for the human race? By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful and uneasily hilarious, The Year of the Flood is Atwood at her most effective.
I really enjoyed this second book in the MaddAddam trilogy. This trilogy basically centers around the theme of how the arsenal of death by stupidity is quite impressive for a species as smart as humans. I enjoyed how the ending of this book was the same as the ending to the first book "Oryx and Crake." Atwood has retold the tale in this book through other characters, mostly focusing on different details in the same world.
More specifically this book in the series centers around God's Gardeners, which is essentially a back-to-nature cult founded by Adam One. And they have predicted the Waterless Flood, which is the plaque that wipes out most of humanity.
One thing I adore about Atwood is how she is excellent at showing what happens when human beings cannot love. She does so in a non-judging way. For example the main character Crake uses utopian desire for perfectability which replaces the lost and lonely self.
Overall Atwood is a funny and clever writer and I think this is a great second book in a series. The little flaws in “The Year of the Flood” are I believe part of the pleasure. Just as the flaws in human beings are what make us beautiful. Atwood sure knows how to show us ourselves.
