Book Review | Book Chatter

The Year of the Flood
By Margaret Atwood
Vintage, 2010, 448pp.

The Short of It:

This is the second book in a trilogy. Much easier to consume than book one due to its difficult content.

The Rest of It:

Atwood is such a force. She’s created this world where everything has gone to hell and man, it’s so fitting for our times.

In this installment, we learn more about the different communities that resulted after the pandemic that took the world by storm. There are Gardeners, extreme Vegans who grow their food on rooftops and the worst of the worst, the folks that have been imprisoned and escaped only to cause havoc in a land without protection.

In this installment, we learn more about the Crakers, who were introduced in Oryx and Crake. These people are a mild people who live their lives happily, often singing, and procreating. Yep. They are bio-engineered and when the women are ripe, they turn blue which signals the Crakers to gather with their swinging blue appendages (take a guess here) and then a foursome is chosen to continue the human race. This is a bizarre practice and wild to read about.

While the Crakers are running around singing and carrying on, the Gardeners find themselves a target because of their resiliency and food supply that others so desperately want. Plus, it’s a lawless society. Women are taken and abused repeatedly and often left for dead. The Gardeners are forced to move in order to save their own.

In this installment, we begin to see the origins of Oryx and Crake. How Oryx created all the animals, including the violent Pigoons, but are they really violent, flesh eating creatures or are they too, just trying to survive? Crake’s power is explored but the idolatry that folks had for him begins to crack as people come together and share their own stories of the land before.

The Year of the Flood really solidified my love for Atwood. As soon as I finished, I immediately picked up book three, MaddAddam. I should have that review up soon.

Highly recommend if you can get through book one, Oryx and Crake. You must read these books in order or you will be lost.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Bookshop.org affiliate links.

The End of the World As We Know It
By Christopher Golden (Edited by), Brian Keene (Edited by). Stephen King (Introduction by)
Gallery Books, August 2025, 800pp.

The Short of It:

If you hold The Stand near and dear to your heart, this anthology inspired by this beloved book, will not disappoint.

The Rest of It:

I am picky, really picky when it comes to anthologies but this one holds up. Thirty-six of horror’s finest writers came together to create this, well, masterpiece.

The collection opens with a real banger of a story. It puts you right back into the pandemic. That fear of catching it, the fear of what comes after. As you can imagine, a world wrecked by a pandemic quickly deteriorates. Resources become scare, people become desperate, fast. In a world gone to hell, who can you trust?

Each story intentionally walks down that path. Who can you trust? What would you do in a situation like that? Fight to survive, no matter what that means? Or end it?

I really enjoyed this particular collection because it was easy to dip in and out of. Some of the stories are a little longer but still readable in one sitting, which I like. My issues with short fiction, typically, is that there isn’t enough time to pull me in. Not the case with this batch.

Highly recommend.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Bookshop.org affiliate links.

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