I’m getting behind again. I really need to make a habit of writing about a book right after I finish reading it, which is what I’m doing now. Before I write something about Larry Brown’s collection of short stories, which I read first. But that’s neither here nor there.
MaddAddam is the final book in a trilogy by Margaret Atwood, preceded by Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, both of which I read and loved. In 2011. That was a while ago, so my memory of them is a bit hazy. I think I would have enjoyed MaddAddam even more if I’d reread those two first for a refresher, though Atwood is good about sprinkling little reminders where they’re needed.
I won’t give much of a summary of this one because, well, it’s the third of a trilogy, and if you haven’t read the first two, it would be full of spoilers. All I’ll say is that Atwood fleshes out the backstory of the other two novels and offers a somewhat satisfying resolution to the story by joining the plots, which seemed so separate before. And by “satisfying,” I don’t mean good or bad – or ambivalent. (See? No spoilers this time! I just had a reader complain…) It’s almost a Breaking Bad (I know) sort of resolution. That’s all I’ll say.
So. MaddAddam is good and worth a read. Margaret Atwood is almost always good and worth a read (I’m not a fan of The Penelopiad, but I think I’ve liked everything else). Don’t read this one if you haven’t read Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood because this trilogy is more like one novel in a Lord of the Rings sort of way. Best of all, read them in one go.
I guess I can’t really talk about this one enough without connecting it to the other two, so read those reviews and consider this a continuation. I even reread them and didn’t change my mind.
(Okay, here’s a better summary for my benefit, since this blog is really for my benefit because I’m terrible at remembering what I’ve read. So spoiler alert for all you complainers out there. It’s narrated by Toby, one of the Gardeners. They’ve rescued Snowman/Jimmy, who was just about dead from a foot infection. The Painballers – think Hunger Games, but with criminals – escaped, thanks to the Crakers, after they raped Amanda. The Crakers also had their way with most of the women, but no one really seems to consider it rape. The Gardeners and the others move into a compound and make a deal with anthromorphized pigs to help kill the Painballers, and they go on an adventure to do just that. And we get more of the backstory from Zeb, who explains how everyone knew each other before the Waterless Flood. And so on.)
