The Year of the Flood (300 pages)

The Year of the Flood

Margret Atwood

Quarter 1, Book 3

The Year of the Flood is science fiction. The characters are part of a cult formed in protest of the evils going on around them. Ren moved back to the HealthWyzer complex with her mom, where she was born. Ren is confined to HealthWyzer limitations where she eats, sleeps and goes to school. Another clue that the book is sci-fi is that the survivors of the waterless flood observe liobams and other animals engineered to be a combination of two animals. There are also gangs on the streets that are called pleebrats. These people live in the “pleebs” or slums with no housing or sanitation. Amanda, the girl Ren’s family takes in from the streets, tries to impress Ren with her jellyfish bracelet in which real jellyfish live and must be fed. Another main character, Toby, then works in an AnooYoo salon that gives women various treatments to make them look younger and feel healthier. She is forced to move from the Gardeners’ rooftop to an underground cell and have surgery to change her identity because she is in danger of getting caught by the security force of the day, or CorpsSeCorps. the technologies she encunters prove the book takes place in the future.

The Year of the Flood (first 3rd)

The Year of the Flood

Margaret Atwood

First 3^rd of the Book

In this science fiction sequel to Oryx and Crake, a “waterless flood” has taken life away from all humans except two women, Ren and Toby. Ren and Toby are part of a group, which alters the way they live their lives. The group that they have chosen to be a part of is called Gardeners, referring to the Garden of Eden in the bible. The women do not know that the other is alive, but the book focuses on what they are thinking about and their past, not their means of survival. In one chapter, Ren leaves the Gardeners’ area to walk around at the mall with her best friend. Ren meets a girl named Amanda who happens to have a bracelet with jellyfish in it, that Ren later finds out Amanda had stolen. Since Amanda has no home and lives on the street Ren decides to have Amanda live with her, her mother and stepfather. Ren’s best friend Bernice, does not like Amanda. When Ren chooses to take Amanda in, she is giving up a friendship she has cherished her whole life. Ren thinks of the situation positively because she now shares a room with Amanda and views her as more of a sister than a friend. Things start to crumble between Bernice and Ren when Amanda finds out that Bernice’s father is sleeping with another women in the Vinegar Closet. Bernice will not talk to Ren, who tries to make an effort to include her. Ren's decision definitely changed her childhood, but is it for the better?

Unwind

Unwind

Neal Shusterman

Quarter 1

Unwind tells of the story of what might happen to teenagers in the future when abortion no longer exists; instead the parents of unwanted teens fill out of a form to have their child undergo surgery in which the child's body parts are preserved and then distributed to people in need who have the money to pay for these body parts. Essentially the child dies, but their body parts live on in other people. Three unwinds safely make their way to a "graveyard" or place where unwinds make their own city with a captain in charge of them. However, when the captain nearly dies two of these unwinds must take him to the hospital and are therefore caught and sent to a harvest camp, the place where they will be unwound. However, there lives are saved when the third unwind and two of his friends blow up the building in which the procedures take place. The unwinds that blow up these buildings are called clappers because they have chemicals put into their blood stream so that when they clap there is an explosion. It's ironic that the children are going against the law and saving hundreds of lives because everyone at the harvest camp escapes. The book's message is that avoiding reality is possible and that even though people make bad decisions there are people to compensate for them and that everything happens for a reason. One of the unwinds, Conner, is asked to write a letter to his parents when in hiding in someone's house on the way to the graveyard. He writes that he loves his parents even though they choose to have him unwound. This letter reveals the message that maybe parents know what they are doing and that taking care of their children is really their major goal. Another point worth mentioning is that Conner is in the building when it is blown up and he needs a new arm to recover from his injuries. He thinks and knows that unwinding is unethical, but the arm he is given is that of his enemy, should he haven taken the arm if it was a life or death situation? I enjoyed this book very much because it was a science fiction thriller that was filled with action!