Fave Reads | 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.

Cat’s Eye
By Margaret Atwood
Vintage, 1998, 480pp.

The Short of It:

What a read. Took me forever to get to it, but so glad I did.

The Rest of It:

Cat’s Eye is the story of Elaine Risley, a controversial painter who returns to Toronto, the city of her youth, for a retrospective of her art. Engulfed by vivid images of the past, she reminisces about a trio of girls who initiated her into the the fierce politics of childhood and its secret world of friendship, longing, and betrayal. ~ from the publisher

When I chose this book for club, some online readers immediately warned me that it was a rough read. Oddly enough, I didn’t get that at all. Yes, maybe some childhood trauma in relation to bullying but honestly, I’ve experienced much worse. Instead, what I felt was a return to our younger years. The formative years where what others say, shape you.

Also, the impact of friends and their parents. You never know what a child is remembering or how any act of kindness or cruelness is perceived. Elaine Risley runs around with a pack of girls, a pack. You know the kind. The kind with a ringleader. The kind where every action is scrutinized and your membership in the group hangs on every word that comes out of your mouth.

Elaine is a painter though. Everything that she takes in, eventually comes out on a canvas. Her art is controversial. Criticism abounds and yet, she manages to find places for her work to be displayed and has made a name for herself. She calls herself a painter but not an artist. Interesting. As if just the title of artist means something less than what it is.

But those girls. It made me think about gender and how it plays a role in cruelness. Girls can be mean. Very mean. Their words are like daggers and their criticism can slice right through you. Boys can be mean, but I’d argue that they tend to be more physical. They can duke it out in a fist fight and be friends again by the end of the day.

The impact of those relationships in childhood is never ending. As we discussed the book, we could not help but revisit traumas we experienced in childhood. Bigger evils, lesser. It’s all relative but what happens to you in childhood sticks.

Atwood is an amazing storyteller. She can pivot on a dime and does. Her depiction of childhood is spot on. Highly recommend.

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

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