GENERAL INFORMATION
TITLE: MADDADDAM
AUTHOR: MARGARET ATWOOD
PAGES: 416
PUBLISHER: BLOOMSBURY PUBLISHING
YEAR: 2013
GENRE: DYSTOPIAN FICTION
BLURB FROM THE COVER
A man-made plague has swept the earth, but a small group survives, along with the green-eyed Crakers – a gentle species bio-engineered to replace humans. Toby, onetime member of the Gods Gardeners and expert in mushrooms and bees, is still in love with street-smart Zeb, who has an interesting past. The Crakers’ reluctant prophet, Snowman-the-Jimmy, is hallucinating; Amanda is in shock from a Painballer attack; and Ivory Bill yearns for the provocative Swift Fox, who is flirting with Zeb. Meanwhile, giant Pigoons and malevolent Painballers threaten to attack.
Told with wit, dizzying imagination, and dark humour, Booker Prize-winning Margaret Atwood’s unpredictable, chilling and hilarious MaddAddam takes us further into a challenging dystopian world and holds up a skewed mirror to our own possible future.
EXTRACT
In the beginning, you lived inside the egg. That is where Crake made you.
REVIEW
MaddAddam is the conclusion of the trilogy that started with Oryx and Crake and continued with The Year of The Flood. MaddAddam brings the story of Snowman and the Crakers and the remaining God’s Gardeners together. Oryx and Crake blew my mind and I adored The Year of the Flood so I had high hopes for MaddAddam.
I really enjoyed MaddAddam but Atwood never quite lives up to the expectations created in Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. The main issue I found was with the development of some of the characters from the other novels in the trilogy.
Toby was the best character in The Year of the Flood. She was a bad-ass bitch like Lara Croft and Alice in the Resident Evil movies and other kick-ass female characters rolled into one. I loved her. I was sort of scared of her. In MaddAddam she suffers from a severe dose of Stepford Wife Syndrome for most of the novel. She’s in love with Zeb and moons and simpers a lot. Oh Zeb I am like so in luuuuuuuurve wit you. She obsesses over his comings and goings and thinks he’s shagging every woman he’s anywhere near. Love can be like that. I get it. Love can make you all doe-eyed. But this is Toby. In a few swift words Atwood turns her from a bad-ass mother-fucker into a doe-eyed, drooling idiot who skips through daisies singing tra-la-la. Bleugh!
Don’t even get me started on what Atwood does to Snowman. I love Snowman. He’s one of the best characters I’ve ever read. His story is one of the reasons Oryx and Crake blew my mind. I was really looking forward to Atwood continuing his story. Snowman is in a coma for most of MaddAddam. And then he up and dies not long after he regains consciousness. Thanks a bushel Atwood. He should have stayed in a coma.
MaddAddam had some great moments. I loved the Crakers so much. Crazy little genetic freaks with their simple minds and endless questions and creepy singing and green skin and sexual organs that turn blue when they’re horny. I’m not kidding. There are some hilarious moments at the start of the novel when they have no clue what’s going on, set the psychotic rapist Painballer’s free and impregnate several women including Amanda and Swift Fox. I also loved the crazy dystopian world Atwood creates in MaddAddam. The Pigoons were a highlight. Especially when they ask Toby and co, via the Crakers for help in killing the vicious Painballers who have been killing their children. Aw bless! I loved the chapters where Toby was telling the Crakers various stories and kept telling them to stop singing.
MaddAddam is a good if a little uneven ending to a great dystopian trilogy. I really enjoyed it. I would definitely re-read the trilogy but I would read it in the correct order the next time as I read them out of sync.
RATING
