Review: The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

There are a few authors whose new books I read no matter what—Margaret Atwood is one of them. So I picked up The Year of the Flood without reading any descriptions or reviews. I didn’t even read the inside flap before I read the book.

There seem to be a lot of post-apocalyptic movies and books coming out now, and Atwood’s version was pretty timely with the h1n1 scare. Her “flood” was a waterless flood—a pandemic that wipes out most of the human race. She follows the stories of two survivors and the events that led to their isolation when the sickness broke out and killed almost everyone else in the world.

Based on its title, The Year of the Flood, I was surprised at how little of the book was actually spent on the year of the flood. The flood was in year twenty-five by someone’s reckoning and much of the book was spent on the years leading up to it. The back story was interesting and much of it was needed to understand the characters during the year of the flood, but I expected more flood.

I often wonder if an established author’s later books would have been published if they were an unknown writer. I loved Vonnegut’s last book, even though it was the rantings of a cranky old man, because I loved Vonnegut himself. I wonder if I would have even finished Atwood’s latest book if it wasn’t Margaret Atwood.

My official opinion on The Year of the Flood: it was weird. Honestly, I don’t know what happened in the end. It just stopped. I wasn’t sure if Atwood meant for it to be hopeful or despairing. Maybe she was leaving it up to her readers to decide, but I wanted to know what she and her characters thought. If you’ve never read Margaret Atwood, don’t read this book. Start with The Handmaid’s Tale. And if you’re a Margaret Atwood fan, I guess you’re like me and you have to read The Year of the Flood. No matter how baffled it leaves you.

The Year of the Flood
By Margaret Atwood
Doubleday, 2009
$26.95