Month: September 2013

Dexter’s Final Cut by Jeff Lindsay

Posted September 18, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Crime / 0 Comments

Dexter’s Final Cut by Jeff LindsayTitle: Dexter's Final Cut (Goodreads)
Author: Jeff Lindsay
Series: Dexter #7
Published: Orion, 2013
Pages: 384
Genres: Crime
My Copy: ARC from Edelweiss

Buy: AmazonBook DepositoryKindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Hollywood has made a deal with the Miami Police Department to help them research a new TV show. Star Robert Chase has been shadowing Dexter Morgan to learn how to be a forensic analyst. This will put a dampener on Dexter’s nighttime activities. Camera shy and hunting down one of the worst killers who escape the justice system, and now a movie star watching his every move, how will he manage?

I’ve been a big fan of the Dexter series; both the TV shows and the books. I want to say they are like a guilty read but I don’t feel guilty at all. Darkly Dreamy Dexter was one of the first books I read when I first became a reader and one of the few series that I’ve read in its entirety. I do enjoy crime novels and love the way Jeff Lindsay gets into the mind of this sociopath.

Dexter is back in the seventh book in the series and while I love the series, the books have been rocky, some are really enjoyable and some just fell a little short. Dexter’s Final Cut was luckily one of the stronger books in the series. I really liked the way this book focused less on the hunting and killing but more on Dexter as a character.

If you’ve read any of the Dexter series or watched the show you will know that Dexter struggles to pretend to be human and at times he gets really good at it. In Dexter’s Final Cut they spotlight is on Dexter in a big way and the struggle becomes the most important part of the novel. His social interactions, his marriage and his work have all been watched carefully by star Robert Chase and possibly the paparazzi.

I like this new direction, it works really well for this type of novel but if I judge by the title of this book, it might be the last one in the series (I hope not). I love the internal monologue of this series and how light and entertaining they are, if this is the last in the series I will need something to replace it so I am open to suggestions. Dexter Morgan is a well-developed character and the series has always been witty and entertaining but this would have to be one of my favourites in the series so far.


Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books On My Spring 2013 TBR List

Posted September 17, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Top Ten Tuesday / 0 Comments

toptentuesdayIt’s Tuesday again which means time for another round of Top Ten Tuesday; I like joining in of this meme because I have a set topic to work with. Top Ten Tuesday is a book blogger meme that is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week the theme is: Top Ten Books On My Spring 2013 TBR List. I’ve already done a post similar here but I’ve already read two of them, so I can recycle three of them and pick another seven more.

10. The Last Winter of Dani Lancing by P.D. Viner
A new psychological thriller in the tradition of Before I Go to Sleep and Memento, P.D. Viner’s debut is looking like it might be an interesting read. Twenty years ago, college student Dani Lancing was kidnapped and brutally murdered, the killer was never found and the case is now cold. Her parents’ marriage fell apart as a result of it, but now a new lead has been found and rekindles an obsession for revenge.

9. The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. by Adelle Waldman
Nathaniel Piven is a rising star in the Brooklyn literary scene, after several years of learning he now has his pick of assignments and women. Debut novelist Adelle Waldman plunges into the psyche of the modern man and offers up a literary romance that is both intelligent and witty. I hope this book is a novel of struggles, discovery and anxiety that comes with romance and the literary scene.

8. A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
Sixteen-year-old Nao decides she wants to escape the loneliness and bullying of her classmates. But before she ends it all she decides to document the life of her great grandmother, a Buddhist nun. Across the pacific Ruth finds some artifacts washed ashore from the 2011 tsunami that pulls her into Nao’s drama. Ozeki explores relationships, the past and present, fact and fiction in this contemporary novel.

7. Skinner by Charlie Huston
Growing up, Skinner wasn’t like other boys. Appearing to have no emotions, he seemed to be powered by reason alone, a robot that could be programmed to do whatever its master wanted. No surprise that as an adult he didn’t seem to fit it. Until he came to the attention of the CIA, and they realized they had stumbled across the perfect assassin. His speciality: protecting human ‘assets’. His method: ensuring that the price a rival agency paid for acquiring the asset always outweighed the asset’s worth. In other words, he killed everybody involved, and then some more, just to make the point.

6. The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God’s Gardeners—a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life—has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God’s Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible.

5. The Explorer by James Smythe
When journalist Cormac Easton is selected to document the first manned mission into deep space, he dreams of securing his place in history as one of humanity’s great explorers. But in space, nothing goes according to plan. The crew wake from hypersleep to discover their captain dead in his allegedly fail-proof safety pod. They mourn, and Cormac sends a beautifully written eulogy back to Earth. The word from ground control is unequivocal: no matter what happens, the mission must continue.

4. Harvest by Jim Crace
On the morning after harvest, the inhabitants of a remote English village awaken looking forward to a hard-earned day of rest and feasting at their landowner’s table. But the sky is marred by two conspicuous columns of smoke, replacing pleasurable anticipation with alarm and suspicion.

3. The Never List by Koethi Zan
For years, best friends Sarah and Jennifer kept what they called the “Never List”: a list of actions to be avoided, for safety’s sake, at all costs. But one night, against their best instincts, they accept a cab ride with grave, everlasting consequences. For the next three years, they are held captive with two other girls in a dungeon-like cellar by a connoisseur of sadism.

2. NW by Zadie Smith 
Zadie Smith’s brilliant tragi-comic new novel follows four Londoners — Leah, Natalie, Felix and Nathan — as they try to make adult lives outside of Caldwell, the council estate of their childhood. From private houses to public parks, at work and at play, their London is a complicated place, as beautiful as it is brutal, where the thoroughfares hide the back alleys and taking the high road can sometimes lead you to a dead end.

1. The Siege by Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Cadiz, 1811. Spain is battling for independence while America is doing the same. But in the streets of the most liberal city in Europe other battles are taking place. A serial killer is on the loose, flaying young women to death. Each of these murders takes place near the site where a French bomb has just fallen. It is the job of policeman Rogelio Tizon to find the murderer and avoid public scandal in a city already posied on the brink.


Kiss Me First by Lottie Moggach

Posted September 16, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Thriller / 5 Comments

Kiss Me First by Lottie MoggachTitle: Kiss Me First (Goodreads)
Author: Lottie Moggach
Narrator: Imogen Church
Published: Picador, 2013
Pages: 352
Genres: Thriller
My Copy: Audiobook

Buy: AmazonBook DepositoryKindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Leila spends most of her life on the Internet, one day she finds a forum called Red Pill, which discusses philosophical ideas. She feels at home on this site and becomes a regular contributor. One day the creator of the site approaches her with a secret project. Tess is looking for a way to end her life without hurting her friends and family. She asks Leila to continue her online life for her so she can slip away from the world unnoticed.

This will be a hard book to review and I will try not to give away any spoilers that aren’t in the book blurb. Written in the style of an online journal, the reader will slowly explore the motivations behind Tess wanting to kill herself, why Leila decides to help and the aftermath that follows. This was a real page-turner and it made me miss forums, but not online journals (I never was good at that) because I have a book blog and it is pretty much an online journal of my reading life.

I love the concept of this book, in a world where we spend most of the time communicating online, what is to say that we are truly communicating with the intended person. Their identity could have been stolen, it could be someone pretending to be someone they are not or someone has taken over their life after they completed suicide. There is no real way to tell that is really happening in the online world.

The Internet is a tricky thing to portray in a novel, with changing technology and new trends, how do you stay relevant. Also do you write the book in text/IM language and use memes and current trends to tell the story? Kiss Me First is not trying to say the Internet and social networking is bad but just using it as a tool to tell this mystery.

I’m always interested in how the Internet is portrayed in a novel and Kiss Me First has managed to get the balance right. A mixture of nostalgia towards dying sites like the online journal or forums, relevance when talking about social networking, and tongue in cheek when talking about never understanding what text/IM language is all about. For some, the narrative might not be the easiest to read but if you have spent time reading online journals at any point of time, you will pick it up pretty easily.

I really enjoyed this novel, the mystery was pretty ordinary but there were some surprises. I preferred the philosophical questions and the way Lottie Moggach explored the online life with such ease. I was surprised to learn that this was a debut novel; it was executed well and offered some interesting thoughts on social networking. Also credit where credit is due, the approach to the internet was handled well; I think it will stand the test of time for a while and not age as fast as some novels. Kiss Me First has been getting a lot of attention lately and it really was a thrilling novel and is sure to entertain the readers, especially if you spend most of your day online.


Reading Non-Fiction

Posted September 15, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literature / 0 Comments

I’m not a non-fiction reader, much to my own disappointment. A few of the non-fiction books I have read have been good and the book that inspired me and turned me into a reader was in fact a non-fiction book. Recently I’ve been inspired with an idea; this idea will require a lot of non-fiction reading and research. So I need to motivate myself in becoming a bigger non-fiction reader.

My research will require some reading up on philosophy, art history and maybe even pop culture which will be good for my blog Knowledge Lost and hopefully will give me some new posts for that poor neglected site. Here is what I need, I want to become a better non-fiction reader so I would love some recommendations of books that I might be interested in and are really interesting reads. It doesn’t have to be related but that would be a bonus; I just want some motivation and I hope some great recommendations will help. Also I need tips and advise to become a non-fiction reader. Do audiobooks make for a good way to get through a non-fiction book?

My idea may never be realised but I feel inspired to research it, even if it takes me a lifetime. My goal to become a non-fiction reader will hopefully be a result in this inspiration. My goal is to read at least one non-fiction a month; this challenge may turn me into the type of reader I want to become. I love learning new things but I need to force myself into reading those non-fiction books. One of the biggest problems is working out how to review these books, so I might just do a mini review or something in order to take some of my pressure off.

I’m not going to tell you about my idea but I will give you a list of books I plan to read; this is a very random list but these books I hope will give me some inspiration and guide me down different paths that might help. I know some of these books will be a big help, others are just interesting or books on my shelves already that might help in one form or another.

  • Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre
  • Exquisite Corpse: Surrealism and the Black Dahlia Murder by Mark Nelson and Sarah Hudson Bayliss
  • If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit by Brenda Ueland
  • Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury & Aly Sujo
  • The Culture Club by Craig Schuftan
  • The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood by James Gleick
  • The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan
  • The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas G. Carr
  • You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney
  • Young Romantics: The Tangled Lives of English Poetry’s Greatest Generation by Daisy Hay

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

Posted September 14, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Contemporary / 0 Comments

We Need New Names by NoViolet BulawayoTitle: We Need New Names (Goodreads)
Author: NoViolet Bulawayo
Narrator: Robin Miles
Published: Chatto & Windus, 2013
Pages: 290
Genres: Contemporary
My Copy: Audiobook

Buy: AmazonBook Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

We Need New Names tells the story of Darling and her friends growing up in what they call Paradise in Zimbabwe. This novel explores the struggles faced growing up in this landlocked country, which isn’t all-bad; the kids find ways to manage and even have fun. When Darling got a little older she was sent to America where a whole new set of mischief and adventures began.

Zimbabwean author NoViolet Bulawayo (real name Elizabeth Tshele) does an interesting job of exploring life growing up in Zimbabwe and then learning to live in America. A culture clash, that is not unlike her own story. Darling and her friends seem to make their own fun, from playing made up games like Country Game and stealing guavas. But Zimbabwe is politically unstable and they have suffered because of the white people. There are some interesting insights about life in this country and I really enjoyed learning about Darling’s life.

Then the novel changes drastically and Darling starts her life in America. This might be an improvement in her life style but this doesn’t mean she was not missing her home. The culture clash was the most interesting part of this book, from stealing guavas to survive and making up games to fast food and spending her afternoons with new friends watching redtube. This was a completely different life and story and it was interesting to compare the two and follow Darling’s journey.

At times in the novel I got confused; especially when Darling refers to Shanghai and Budapest, I couldn’t work out how she got to these locations but then worked out these are different sections of Paradise and named after the ethnic groupings. I know, I’m a little slow and a little surprised I didn’t pick up on this right away but Darlings language took me a while to work out and fully understand what she was saying.

While this book is easy to read (once you get to know Darling’s narrative style), this can be hard hitting. The novel is confrontational and will give you some insight into an African life and the struggles facing children in places like Zimbabwe. Struggles you might never have thought of and moving them to a place like America might give them a better chance in life but then you have a whole new set of struggles to understand.

Longlisted for the Man Booker and I was recommend this book by another book blogger (Jennifer from The Relentless Reader), I am really glad I read We Need New Names. The novel took me on an interesting journey and I feel I learnt from it and that is what makes for a great book. I don’t think it will win the Man Booker, but I hope it make the shortlist as well. I wouldn’t call this novel a typical literary prize nomination but a novel that deserves some boost in sales from its nomination.


Become a Better Reader

Posted September 13, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literature / 15 Comments

I have been thinking about myself as a reader lately and I thought I might talk about it in a post. I really want to be a better reader but there seems to be so much I need to learn or get into a habit of doing. So below is a list of those things and I would love it if people can give me some hints or tips to help improve myself as a reader.

Note taking
I really struggle with this; I want to learn to write down thoughts and interesting quotes but never seem to work out a good way to do this. I don’t often have a notepad with me so I don’t know how to get into a habit or what will help. I thought about using Tumblr or Goodreads progress updates to do that but I’m not sure if they will help. I just have to somehow train myself into doing this.

Reading Critically
I want to be able to pick out symbolism, motifs and themes throughout the book. If you have been a reader of my blog for a while you probably can see that my reviewing seems to have improved and has more of a focus on critical understanding but I still think I’m a long way off to where I want to be. This might mean I need to read slower and reread books.

Understanding Literary Theory
I think part of reading critically would be to learn literary theory and that can be tricky. I started a BA in English Lit to learn this stuff but feel like I haven’t got into literary theory yet which is probably not true, I’m just impatient. I would love if there were a podcast or something that will slowly go through basic literary concepts and explain them in a practical, easy to understand manner. If I was smarter I would write my own but I still need to learn and probably need help to bounce my autodidactic learning off to make sure I’m on the right track.

Better Reviews
I struggle with synopsis’s and often fill tempted to use a book blurb or Goodreads synopsis instead. This is just one element of a book review that I want to improve, I know I’m getting better but I would love to write ten pages analysing a book without any effort. I know people won’t want to read a review that long but if I learn to write something like that, then I can work out a way to incorporate that into my blog.

There is a lot to learn here and I think I will eventually get to a place where all these points will be incorporated into my regular reading life. When that day comes I am sure I will have a new goal, I’m just inpatient and I want to have a better understanding in literature than I do now. I feel this will come with practise and continually pushing myself to be better and I hope that my blog is a reflection in this progress.


The Hot Kid by Elmore Leonard

Posted September 12, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Crime / 0 Comments

The Hot Kid by Elmore LeonardTitle: The Hot Kid (Goodreads)
Author: Elmore Leonard
Series: Carl Webster #1
Published: Harper Collins, 2005
Pages: 320
Genres: Crime
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: AmazonBook DepositoryKindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Carl Webster was fifteen when he witnessed his first murder. Now he is the hot kid in the Marshall services; polite, respectful and can shoot a man driving away from 400 yards. He is on his way to being the most famous lawman of the 1930s. Jack Belmont wants to rob banks, become the most notorious outlaw and show his millionaire father he can live his own life. In the time of the Volstead Act comes The Hot Kid, a fast paced crime novel from a master of his craft; Elmore Leonard.

I love the Volstead Act; without it there may never have been organised crime in America and that makes for some interesting reading. Of course, love is the wrong word to describe the Volstead Act but I do have a huge interest in the era. For those who don’t know about the Volstead Act, it was the National Prohibition Act that became the Eighteenth Amendment, which established prohibition in the United States in 1919. This led to a surge in bootlegging and organised crime and made for some great stories for me to enjoy, from Boardwalk Empire (wonder if there are books that are like this show) to The Hot Kid.

I was saddened to hear about the recent loss of Elmore Leonard; though I hadn’t read anything by this crime master it really affected me. The very next day I reserved The Hot Kid from the library. I didn’t know where to start with this legend; he has written so many novels and they all looked good but a book set in the 1930s was right up my alley. Researching Elmore Leonard I realised that he was more successful that I thought. If you measure a writer’s success in adaptations (which I really don’t want to do) then you can’t go past some of his best adaptions like Jackie Brown, 3:10 to Yuma, Get Shorty, Killshot, Out of Sight and the TV show Justified.

The Hot Kid was a fast paced crime novel that I ended up reading in two sittings which is a big surprise because I feel like I’m a slow reader. I really enjoyed the way Leonard writes; it was so well plotted that he makes writing look so easy which I’m sure is very difficult to do. He is a prolific author with novels set in western times all the way up to the modern era. But I enjoy a time when organised crime reigns and tend to enjoy crime novels set there.

The only major issue I had with this book was that it never really felt like it was set in the time of speakeasies, tommy guns and organised crime. Every now and then I get a reference to the Volstead or a Thompson that pulls me back into the correct era. For the majority of the book I felt like Carl Webster was far too similar to Raylan Givens (from the TV show Justified) and that threw me off a little but didn’t really effect the overall enjoyment of the book.

Maybe this wasn’t the best place to start when exploring Elmore Leonard’s craft but I have no regrets. I will read the next book in the Carl Webster series but I think I might like to try something else by this crime master first. The problem I often face is the fact that I want to continue with an author but have so many other books I want to read and more often than not I never return to a writer I enjoy. But I’ve only been reading for a short time and I’m sure Elmore Leonard and the Carl Webster series will be read sometime in the near future.


The Machine by James Smythe

Posted September 11, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literary Fiction, Speculative Fiction / 6 Comments

The Machine by James SmytheTitle: The Machine (Goodreads)
Author: James Smythe
Published: Blue Door, 2013
Pages: 328
Genres: Literary Fiction, Speculative Fiction
My Copy: Hardcover

Buy: AmazonBook Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Beth lives in a remote village by the sea, a desolate place where she can rebuild her life following the return of her husband after the war. Vic is haunted by his memories and turns to a machine to take his nightmares away, but it takes everything away; now Beth is determined to rebuild him.

Dubbed as Frankenstein for the 21st century, The Machine is a wonderfully dark and complex novel that really deserves more attention. I normally get annoyed when novels are compared to Frankenstein; how can any novel truly compare? The Machine was a different story; I wasn’t expecting it to compare to Frankenstein, I was more interested with the dark and complex nature of this book. The novel reminds me more of the British TV show Black Mirror; there are two episodes in particular, the episode where all memories are recorded for instant playback (1×3) and the one where a woman loses her husband and turns to a service that continues his online life (2×1). The show is considered “a hybrid of The Twilight Zone and Tales of the Unexpected which taps into our contemporary unease about our modern world” and is designed to be thought provoking. In fact The Machine feels right at home with the style of that show.

Imagine if you can record all your memories and then wipe the ones that cause pain?  Would removing some memories change a person completely? What if that machine wipes every memory and leaves the person catatonic? What are the moral implications of playing with someone’s memories? How should the government regulate scientific advances like this? If you could, would you try to rebuild a loved one? There are just so many questions to answer and The Machine does a great job of creating more. Don’t expect answers, this book is all about giving you questions.

I love a novel that gets you questioning life and philosophy. James Smythe masterfully does what so many try to do, it’s so refreshing to read something like this but it makes me sad that this book isn’t getting more attention. I feel the need to read every James Smythe book I can get my hands on in the desire to experience this feeling again. Science Fiction is a genre that really can explore humanity and morality and Smythe reminds the readers that it’s possible. In the 60s and 70s it felt like all Sci-Fi novels had a message and we have exchanged that for entertainment. Not that there is anything wrong with entertaining the reader but you can do that while exploring philosophical ideas.

There is so much I want to say about this book and the majority of it is positive but I won’t, I think everyone should read this book and experience it for themselves. The plot is compelling and James Smythe writes like a master of his craft. The Machine has already secured a place in my “best books of 2013” list and I want to read more of his books, just to have this experience again. Go out now and get your copy of The Machine.


Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Would Love To See As A Movie/TV Show

Posted September 10, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Top Ten Tuesday / 15 Comments

toptentuesdayIt’s Tuesday again which means time for another round of Top Ten Tuesday; I like joining in of this meme because I have a set topic to work with. Top Ten Tuesday is a book blogger meme that is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish and this week the theme is: Top Ten Books I Would Love To See As A Movie/TV Show. This is a little tricky, but I will give it a go.

  1. Ready Player One – I think this is a great nerdy world and I would make for a great more movie.
  2. Super Sad True Love Story – I love this world and would love to see what they can do with a TV show set in the world
  3. The Shining Girls – This is already in the works but the world does make for an interesting TV concept
  4. March Violets – Another world that would translate really well into a movie.
  5. The Shadow of the Wind – I doubt this will ever happen; Carlos Ruiz Zafón doesn’t want an adaptation.
  6. The Devil All the Time – A gritty gothic/noir story with deeply troubled and flawed character. Sounds like a winning combination.
  7. The City and The City – this is a weirdly complex world and a weirdly complex Sci-Fi movie is always fun.
  8. Tigers in Red Weather – I won’t spoil it but if you’ve read this book you might agree.
  9. The Dinner – Same as Tigers in Red Weather (but I think this would work well as a stage show).
  10. The Philip Marlowe Series – I know there have been some adaptations but Marlowe is such a great character and a TV show would be awesome. I would love a TV show with a hard-boiled detective as the lead.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

Posted September 9, 2013 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Dystopia, Speculative Fiction / 12 Comments

Oryx and Crake by Margaret AtwoodTitle: Oryx and Crake (Goodreads)
Author: Margaret Atwood
Series: Maddaddam #1
Published: Bloomsbury, 2003
Pages: 378
Genres: Dystopia, Speculative Fiction
My Copy: Audiobook

Buy: AmazonBook DepositoryKindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Jimmy was a member of a scientific elite, living in isolation, suffering through bitter loneliness. Then an unnamed apocalypse came along, now he is known as Snowman and he may be one of the few survivors. This post-apocalyptic hermit resides near; what he refers to as Crakers—strange human-like creatures. In flashbacks the story develops, the Crakers, Wolvogs, Pigoons and Rakunks are assorted life forms that are the products of genetic engineering.

Oryx and Crake are the symbols of a fractured society, which Jimmy was once a part of. This is where trying to explain this novel can get complex. There are two different worlds within this book the post-apocalyptic world but then there are the flashbacks. The dystopian world was far more interesting for me. Much like Super Sad True Love Story. this is a dystopian world that I can see coming, corporation’s rule the world and pornography has become mainstream. It is normal to watch live executions and surgeries, nudie news (apparently watching the news when they are fully clothed is just weird), even child pornography.

I love novels that deal with the dangers of corporations having too much power; Super Sad True Love Story is a prime example of it (I should re-read that novel) and Oryx and Crake is another example of this (need more examples). Science and marketing techniques leave the public as powerless consumers and there is nothing to stop the unprecedented corporate greed.

Genetic engineering is a slippery slope; I seem to find myself attracted to novels that deal with science going too far. Oryx and Crake is a great example of this; Crake is a scientist working in the biotech project that created the Crakers. Genetic engineering progress continued to advance and eventually lead to a complex and sinister project called Paradice, but when that collapsed it caused this global devastation.

Oryx was a girl Jimmy and Crake found on a child pornography site that eventually was hired by Crake as a prostitute and to teach the Crakers. Oryx obviously had a difficult past, and Oryx and Crake attempts to deal with this issue as well. This is not an easy issue to deal with, the majority of the world would say they are against child pornography and yet it continues to happen and we see no signs of it ever being truly dealt with. Margaret Atwood doesn’t have a problem with trying to deal with difficult issues and this novel has plenty to say.

Moving away from the dystopian world and into the post-apocalyptic one, we have a whole new set of themes and issues. While this is a direct result of the corporate destruction, now we have to deal with survival. The Crakers are like little helpless children that Snowman tries to help; so now we have parental responsibilities as a major theme as well as our social responsibilities. He also has to protect them from the Wolvogs, Pigoons, Rakunks and whatever might disrupt their civilisation.

This is the second Margaret Atwood novel I’ve read and I’m starting to see a familiar theme coming through in her novels. I believe she wants the reader to have a look at civilisation and what we are doing that is beneficial or harmful. I’m sure the rest of the Maddaddam trilogy will deal with this; I’m not sure if all her books have a similar theme but I suspect they might.

I love a novel that tells a great story but is also loaded with different themes and symbolism. I feel so fulfilled reading a book like Oryx and Crake and spending time digesting the words and examining what Atwood wants to tell us. I was meaning to read this novel for so long and now I’m left with intense desire to read the next two in the series. Thanks you Bloomsbury Australia for pressuring me into reading this book, I have no regrets.