Oryx & Crake / Year of the Flood - Margaret Atwood

I finished Oryx & Crake in record time sometime last year. It is a truly frightening tale, not in the sense of good versus evil or a horror story. Rather, it is a very realistic look at the direction the human race has taken and the road we seem to be speeding down. I am not up on my science, though I do know we have made some medical advances in many different areas. One thing I do know is that people in general are wearing down their resistance to antibiotics and it has been speculated that we're due for an outbreak of some type. Hence my lack of antibacterial soap at home and hesitance to leap to antibiotics right away for anything.

Oryx & Crake is exactly that--between Corporations that produce medicines and others that produce food in a manner that is even more horrifying than our current methods of hormones and antibiotics that make chickens four times as big as they were twenty years ago... It is not much of a leap to go from how the world is now to the world that Atwood builds in Oryx & Crake.

It took a second try to wade through Year of the Flood, mostly because not only alternates characters, but also includes sermons from Adam One. We see events leading up to and after the disaster in Oryx & Crake from the points of view of two different women loosely connected to Jimmy and Glenn (or Snowman and Crake, if you like). Admittedly, I often skimmed through the Adam One sermons. Towards the end, they actually included information regarding the state of the world and should probably not be skimmed over, but that's just me.

As with The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood builds a dystopia that is believable and feasible based on the reality of our society. If I am honest, her writing scares and thrills me all at once. I'm currently not quite halfway through Maddaddam, and my thoughts are ambivalent at this point. Oryx & Crake is worth picking up all on its own, but I can never leave a series unread. Regardless of whether you want to experience the entire series, it is an apt look at what we are doing to the world. It could very well be our future, as we look at the destruction of ecosystems and the crazy flooding I'm currently experiencing.

I love the characters, they are all so relatable, especially Toby and Ren. They stand out in a set of novels where they live in a society that places extreme value on scientific and mathematical skills with no regard for anything else, except profit. Perhaps this is why Atwood's fictional world goes to hell in a hand basket. Both Toby and Ren belong to God's Gardeners, an eco-group within the novel. Even it has a dark side, as part of the group branches off and helps cause the literal end of the world. Right now, we're ruled by oil and those backed by big oil. We have other options that will likely not be used in my lifetime. Yet, it begs the question: what exactly are we doing? Our lifestyles are not sustainable. I can even attest that I have no desire to give up my twenty minute morning showers or evening soaks. I drive a gas guzzling sports car. I vote sporadically at best. I recycle only sometimes. This is how we reach the end of the world, isn't it?

Divergent trilogy - Veronica Roth **SPOILERS**

I've been under the weather all week, so I was able to finish the first two books in record time. Once I had recovered a bit (and had to subsequently go back to work), the third one took me until today to finish. On the whole, the entire series has given me a love-hate feeling.

Starting with the hate: the Tris/Tobias dynamic annoyed me to no end. Granted, it was not as cheesy and teen-lust fueled as Ready Player One, but I just didn't like the way they came across. Teenage love moves at the speed of light, and that was reasonable in Divergent. However, I feel like the constant lying to one another and his habit of keeping Tris out of the loop to protect her... Well, I just got overly annoyed by it. While they do eventually come to an understanding and their relationship takes a healthier tone later, I just didn't like it.

The story was certainly entertaining and I had a lot of trouble putting down the first two books. If I am honest, I was secretly thrilled at having a fever and needing to stay home from work on Tuesday to finish Insurgent. I am fairly certain that my dissatisfaction with the series, on the whole, lies within book three. I just couldn't really get behind the dystopia within a dystopia. The Abnegation secret, and then the Bureau's interference within their "experiment" felt a little too manufactured. I'm not certain what outcome would have felt more likely, more natural to me. But, the thought of the Factions inside the city being a monitored experiment wasn't it.

Final opinion: not on par with Hunger Games, enormously better than Twilight. I think I need to go back to reading classics for awhile, and hope I can find some better inspiration there.

Chaos Walking Trilogy - Patrick Ness

Summary: In Prentisstown, you drown in your own Noise and the never ending Noise of other residents, pets and wildlife included. Todd is a short month from his birthday, the most important one of all, where he will be considered a man. He is the last boy, and he finds that there has been a terrible secret hidden. So he runs.

I could not help but breeze through the first novel, and even the second. The third was a little less gripping, as I had begun to feel like I knew what was going to happen between the Mayor and Todd. All of the characters started out well, especially Todd and Viola. They linger on the cusp of innocent childhood, only to be shoved into adulthood, where they have no choice but to evolve into survivors, fleeing from their fellow man.

As a villain, the Mayor is a little one sided, never taking on any depth until the second book. I am still unsure how I feel about his part in the story, other than the continual use of him as a foil for Todd. Todd the redeemable and the Mayor being completely nonredeemable. Viola is realistic and strong, a wonderful female protagonist that is scared, brave, and makes very human errors in judgement. The part of the Spackle, the native indigenous race of the new world, in the story becomes larger as it progresses, finally getting an actual voice in the third book. Again, the notion of being redeemable plays an important role here with the Spackle, who is referred to as The Return. I feel like Ness used this formula well, and that the notion of how humans tend to destroy everything was not over done while also not being subtle.

Overall, all three books are well written. I struggled starting out, as they are written from the perspective of an uneducated thirteen year old boy. The purposeful misspelling used to give Todd a voice ended up working very well, as he symbolically showed that knowing right from wrong does not require an education. And also showing that despite his lack of formal education, and growing up surrounded by evil, Todd was able to remain good despite his mistakes.

Ready Player One - Ernest Cline

Bollocks, this had to be one of the most amazing books I've ever read.  It goes far beyond being just a science fiction novel, or a collection of all the geekiest and most awesome things imaginable.  If you're a fan of science fiction as a genre, read it.  Also, if you dig the eighties.  Or video games.  Or technology.  Or just a good story.  It has ALL OF THE THINGS!!

In all seriousness, Cline writes superbly.  Though, I will say he touches on all the touchy things--race, gender, sexual orientation.  He blends so many separate, yet also relevant elements into a whole picture that paints itself.  One thing that really stood out to me was how OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation) was a combination of every game, every show, every fictional universe that has ever been.  Firefly, Star Wars, all of it.  The sheer volume of imagination accessible within OASIS is mind boggling to someone that has spent a large portion of her life wrapped up in a book or video game.  And the mere thought of actually getting to live Firefly or any of my other favorite fictional universes...  It makes my little heart race.

I loved the story, the world, the accurate commentary on everything from capitalism to race and gender.  The beginning is definitely the best part--the characters are witty.  But, there did come a point where I began to roll my eyes at the Art3mis-Wade/Parzival dynamic.  I can't quite pin down what I don't like about their relationship.  Don't get me wrong, I love a good romantic interest.  And I even like when my genres cross (shhhh).  But, something about them in this particular bit of science fiction just didn't quite satisfy. 

Ready Player One definitely merits a re-read.  It was certainly engrossing, as I stayed up well past a decent hour to try and finish.

Never Let Me Go

Required reading for a literature class one semester was Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day.  I actually did enjoy the book, though I didn't enjoy the class.  The teacher wasn't quite with it.  Anyway, I decided to try Never Let Me Go.  I'm still trudging through part one of a three part novel.  It doesn't seem to be terribly long, but it's work to read it.

My issue may not be how slow the pace of the novel is, but the fact that it is stream of consciousness.  I hate stream of consciousness novels.  I'm not sure I ever finished Mrs. Dalloway, which was for the same class mentioned earlier. 

I'm actually towards the end of the first part, and there are some interesting tidbits thrown in that give an idea as to the type of world the novel takes place in.  Again, I've been going through a dystopian phase with books.

Perhaps I can come back in a few days to report that the book ends up being more enjoyable than it currently is.

The Giver

So, initially, I should point out that Sarah shamed me into reading this.  Yes, I know.  It is apparently required reading during school.  I somehow missed that when I moved from the Houston area to Deep-East-Middle-of-Nowhere, Texas.
I liked it enough that I felt it warranted purchasing the whole trilogy.  I'm working on the second book right now, while Mark watches Game of Thrones.  Speaking of which, I need to catch up on.  Not sure I'll ever finish the books.  They're so tedious.  How am I supposed to root for a character when they're going to die in the next few chapters?  All that leaves are bad guys.  And nobody cheers for those.  Well, unless they're hunchbacked, wily and clever.
Anyway, The Giver.  I must be on a streak with the dystopian novels.  I admittedly like them--apocalyptic ones as well.  Sometimes I think I must be a bit morbid, but really I like seeing someone unmask our lovely society, and I often wonder just what would happen.  I mean, we've seen inklings--beatings over one sports team or another, riots during and after a natural disaster.

I like to think that my family would be okay.  Well, if we survived whatever the initial disaster was.  We're a pretty self-sufficient bunch.  I'm one of the only people in my very, very small group of friends who could actually start a fire and feed myself.  Granted, I'd need a few key items, but that is besides the point. 

On a different note, J.K. Rowling's first adult novel will be out September 27th of this year.  [happy dance]  I've been looking forward to getting my hands on this for the longest time!

Happy Hunger Games!

I love Katniss!!  I do, I really do!  She's a typical confused teen, without the angst.  Thank God, because I would have hated having to finish the book.

I'll do a more thorough review once I finish all three.  Hopefully I can restrain myself so I have something good to read on the plane Wednesday!

Oh!  And pictures of the 3rd grade jungle coming soon!

Hunger Games?

Hmmm...  Hyped up books have let me down in the past.  And I am just very afraid these will be the same.  The premise sounds lovely.  In fact, it sounds just like something I'd like to read.  But, so did Twilight.  And for me, Twilight turned out to be like one of those awful accidents you can't look away from.