The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

Mother earth shrugs off most of humanity (with a hand from a mad scientist) – are we worth saving completely?

The book was packed with ideas and theories. We’re killing the earth, and therefore killing ourselves. It might not be good idea for corporations to modify DNA for profit. To refuse to conform might mean you might have to go underground. This book is two things at once – a political tract and a novel. Unfortunately, the novel part , or at least the plotting, breaks down at the end. Are we supposed to believe that 6 billion people on earth get wiped out by a virus and the 20 people remaining (who all know each other) coincidentally keep bumping into each other? The description of the God’s Gardener’s (the environmental church’s) way of life was absorbing and I liked the way a new vocabulary weaves its way naturally into the story (and maybe into real life discourse as well). I also liked that the book was structured around the religious hymns of the God’s Gardeners. Near the end, the scenes get a little too sketchy like a paint by number where paint's running out. Not as resonant as it could be.