Books

Book 228: MaddAddam (MaddAddam #3) – Margaret Atwood

What a great ending to the trilogy. It wasn’t exactly what I expected and it definitely left me wanting more, but overall I think it was a great book. If I hadn’t read these books back-to-back with this book’s release I can definitely see how I could have been disappointed in this denouement, but as I didn’t have to wait for the next books in the series I thoroughly enjoyed all of them.

Although I enjoyed The Year of the Flood and MaddAddam neither were as great as Oryx and Crake. I’m not sure if it’s the change in writing style, which was minimal or if the last two in the trilogy didn’t have the wonderment of discovering a new old world, but they just didn’t quite live up to the first book. All three made me feel emotions and were beautifully written, so I would definitely recommend them!

Click here to continue reading.

Books

Book 227: The Year of the Flood (MaddAddam #2) – Margaret Atwood

What a great continuation of this series! And for a middle novel of a trilogy it definitely held its own which is not always the case. I also enjoyed reading Atwood from a different angle, although it was only a tiny bit different from her other books.

As I mentioned in my Oryx and Crake review every book I’ve read by Atwood has a single narrator who tells their story through a series of flashbacks. This book continues that theme, but rather than it being the same narrator there are two narrators, Ren and Toby, in this book telling their stories.

However, there were again SO many similarities. Each of the narrators, similar to Snowman/Jimmy, experiences the post-apocalyptic world in isolation until about midway through the novel. So looking back at all the characters of Atwood, they’re all isolated (physically, mentally and emotionally) and they all tell their stories from their own perspective. But this is not a bad thing! Atwood gets into each of her character’s minds and creates believable and unique characters which are amazing mirrors of humanity.

Click here to continue reading.

Books

Book 226: Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam #1) – Margaret Atwood

I honestly cannot remember the last time I devoured a book this quickly or the last time I was this excited about a series. Let’s put it this way, I’m desperately trying to think of people to recommend this book to I enjoyed it that much. And I have no doubt I will devour the next two books in this trilogy as rapidly did this first installment.

Having only ever read The Handmaid’s Tale and The Blind Assassin, It has clearly been some time since I read anything by Atwood. When I found out recently that she would be visiting Harvard Book Store to give a talk and read from her new book I KNEW I had to go see her if only to get my copy of The Handmaid’s Tale signed. She will be reading from her newest book MaddAddam and as I haven’t read the first two books in the MaddAddam trilogy I thought I probably should, so I picked up copies of Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood from the library and I am SO glad I did.

Click here to continue reading.

ARC, Books, Reading Events

Book 225: Two Short Stories

So I felt really guilty about reviewing either one of these short stories/novellas on their own so I squished them together and counted them as one book. Total they are barely 50 pages, but I’m including them anyway. The first, In Another Life, is an ARC from the publisher and I received nothing for my honest opinion; the second, Karma is the 2013 Boston Book Festival 1 City 1 Story selection.


I would’ve read this ages ago if I would only have realized that it was a novella/short story. For some reason I assumed this was a standard 150-200 page love story type novel. Regardless I am glad that I read it, even if it was only 28 pages.

They say that the hardest thing to write of all forms of writing is a short story. Now I don’t know who they are or whether this is true, but I can say I have read really bad short stories and amazing short stories. I think a lot of authors struggle with the finite amount of space and telling a complete story within the short story structure. And although E. E. Montgomery does a great job with this as a short story (or novella as the publisher says), this story would only have been better if it had more meat to it. I will say there were golden passages that made my breath catch and made me want the love the two characters had such as
Click here to continue reading.

Books

Book 224: Seating Arrangements – Maggie Shipstead

For a book that has this much hype I expected it to have a lot more impact upon completion. Perhaps I just didn’t understand it and the impact’s subtlety was lost on me. I will say re-reading the last line again increased the impact, but I honestly thought the denouement would be much more dramatic and or conclusive rather than sort of wishy-washy-ing its way to a finale.

Don’t get me wrong, this was not a bad book, it was incredibly well written and the number of lines that made me laugh out loud or that I had to re-read because of how beautiful written they were far outnumbered the issues I had with the book. What got me though is how little action there was in the book. It felt almost like a set of actions stuck on repeat. and that just didn’t do it for me. Thankfully the writing was so great that it pushed the story forward, but I’m still not sure about most of the hype for the book.

Click here to contine reading.