The Year Of the Flood - Margaret Atwood

Adam One, the kindly leader of the God's Gardeners - a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, the preservation of all species, the tending of the Earth, and the cultivation of bees and organic crops on flat rooftops - has long predicted the Waterless Flood. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have avoided it: the young trapeze-dancer, Ren, locked into the high-end sex club, Scales and Tails; and former SecretBurgers meat-slinger turned Gardener, Toby, barricaded into the luxurious AnooYoo Spa, where many of the treatments are edible. Have others survived?

Having read the previous book to this series - Oryx and Crake, I had high expectations for this novel. Im not sure if it was the mood i was in. The little time i had per day to read it (two chapters or so everyday), or the writing style but i could just not get into this book at all.  I really did not enjoy it like i did the previous book.  She flitted from character to character and from past to present without much explanation. Some chapters had titles others did not and instead of explaining this just confused me.  Although I know she was building up the book and everything got explained in the end, this just took to long to interest me.

Also because of the time frame this was set in, she tried to make objects and settings futuristic. OFten she would throw in words without expiation. Although some of these were obvious without a background i could not picture these objects in my mind and therefore felt a little disjointed from the world. This also was the same for the characters. For one character i pictured her at a certain age then half way through the book this expectation was all wrong but then I could not adjust my thoughts to her actually age.

I wish I enjoyed this book, but i just could not. I felt it really disjointed and really disorienting. You were not always sure which character was who, and which character she was writing about at any given time. Added to the shift in time frame this made it more of a confusing read and sometimes it was not until chapters later i could figure out what she was chatting about. What a shame.