I am so torn over this book! The writing I thought was phenomenal. The dystopian world Margaret Atwood builds in this book is disturbing. And yet, it's written in such a way that I definitely could see this as a possible future. From the splicing, to the way that society is split into Compounds and Pleebland. The terrible gene experiments. Let me just say ChickieNobs, ew. Especially the stuff the teenagers do, all those horrible web sites they look at. I personally know American teenagers who admit to having watched snuff videos online, so what Jimmy and Crake are doing is only an extension of that.

The title of the book is maybe misleading, because while Oryx is always looming in the background, you really do not really learn much about her. The chapter about her childhood though, I thought was traumatizing stuff.

I liked the buildup. You see everything from the eyes of the protagonist of the story, Snowman, in his former life Jimmy, and from his childhood onwards he slowly reveals what really happened to have left him as the lone survivor of a major catastrophe. It definitely made me keep on reading and reading, eager to find out more, always more.

The end left me frustrated and is the reason this is not 5 stars for me. It doesn't answer some of my questions. Why did Crake really start the epidemic? What was his masterplan? Did he really just want to wipe out humanity and rule over his Children, nothing else? Why keep Jimmy immune? Why did he slit Oryx' throat? I was mad at Jimmy for just having shot him. I felt I didn't get closure. And then the ending? What exactly is Snowman going to do? Is he going to shoot the other survivors or join with them? I have no idea. Aaargh. Frustrating.