Thanks for stopping by! I'm Cori and I'm happy you've found your way here. If you're wondering why my blog is called "Let's Eat Grandpa," it's an old grammar joke: Let's eat, grandpa! Let's eat grandpa! (Punctuation saves lives.) 
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood, narrated by Bernadette Dunne, Katie MacNichol, and Mark Bramhall
Read: because dystopian literature is one of my favorite genres, and Atwood’s Oryx and Crake socked me in the gut a couple years ago. (Nan A. Talese, 448 pages, originally published September 2009)
Rating: 7 out of 10 (finished 9/16/10)
Synopsis: In her new novel, Atwood returns to the post-apocalyptic mode of her 2003 book, Oryx and Crake, with the story of two women isolated as a genetically engineered plague destroys mankind. Both women have been members of God’s Gardeners, an eco-cult that has long prophesied retribution for society’s apathy and selfishness, and while they wait for signs of life from the outside they spend their days remembering past loves and not-quite-healed wounds. Atwood’s gallows humor is appealing—one of the women joins the cult in order to escape the abusive manager of a human-meat burger joint—and her complex characterization allows the novel’s environmental, Biblical, and sociological themes to intertwine seamlessly.
Overall Impression: I love the fluidity of Atwood’s writing, and its simplicity. It’s like she realizes that she doesn’t need a thousand words to tell a great story.
I read Oryx and Crake three or four years ago, and added it to my growing list of favorite dystopian novels. And although it wasn’t my favorite of all time, I did get very invested in The Year of the Flood. I love how Atwood is able to imagine a future world that is just similar enough to our current world that it disturbs me, and makes me look at things today that — through some very slight manipulation — could be horrors in the future. The story paralleled Oryx and Crake, with some crossover, especially toward the end. Although I believe Atwood wrote the novel to stand alone, I think, for me, it really helped flesh out Oryx and Crake‘s story.
On its own, however, I found it very hard to get into at first. I was listening to it, and although the readers did a great job, I just found that I had to make an actual decision to listen to it instead of my iPod, which is unusual. It felt a little plotless, and I had a difficult time following the timeline (it skips around). It took nearly five CDs before I wanted to keep going — I’m not sure why I gave it that much chance, to be honest. But I did, and I’m glad I did, because it really picked up and I thought the ending was done well.
Oh! And there was singing. And it was weird. You’ll have to listen to it to see if you liked it or not. I’m leaning toward the latter.
Pros: Helped inform Oryx and Crake a little further; interesting characters and world
Cons: Difficult to get into; hard to follow the timeline sometimes
Other books I’ve read by Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake (no reviews…read before I started blogging)
Other blogger opinions: Book Addiction, Theresa at Shelf Love, and Fog City Writer
