“Oryx and Crake”
by Margaret Atwood
Published: April 2003
ISBN: 0771008686

(Updated: July 18, 2004.)

I am a huge Margaret Atwood fan. Huge. I have definitely read all of her books (some more than once) and the lines and images of them pop up in my mind often as I go through my life.

Reading the back flap description "Margaret Atwood’s breathtaking and provactive new novel takes us into a future at once all too familiar and beyond our imagining." and on seeing the image on the cover, I am reminded of Mara and Dann by Doris Lessing. Given that this latter book changed how I think about the present as it relates to our future, I look forward to this one too.

And… besides all of the above… any author who has a photograph of herself on the back of a book cover with snowflakes scattered in her hair and on her shoulders (as is true with this one) is invitation enough for me to pick up the book and read what she has to say.

I finished this book today (July 18th). I found the first half very slow going but around the middle somewhere I could no longer put it down. If I had animated hearts I would have a “couldn’t get back to it” rating that starts at 1 and climbs all the way to 5. My “3 out of 5 hearts” is then an average of all of these :o)

As for the content… Atwood’s book is still too fresh in me for me to comment on “what it was”. But I will.