Rather than start things on a positive note, I'm going to begin by ripping apart a book I had to read for English. It's called Oryx and Crake, by Margaret Atwood, and it's the kind of politically-charged satire, set in the not-too-distant-future, that teachers love to assign.
Unfortunately, the parallels between this book's plot and the author's political paranoias were even more overt than those between the plot of 1984 and Communism. The author must have negative feelings towards drug companies, because in Oryx and Crake, they take over the world. She is clearly opposed to genetic engineering, as we find out when intelligent mutant pigs (created by an organ-transplant company) try to eat the protagonist. In the story, small boys watch televised lethal injections, suicides, and porn almost daily on the Internet. They watch these things often, and eventually get bored of them and relatively de-sensitized. I wonder if she's opposed to reality TV, violent movies, and the porn industry? And I couldn't help but notice her mistrust of scientists when a very important scientist developed a pill to kill everyone on Earth at the same time, and marketed it as an aphrodisiac.
Even in a book full of agendas, I can usually enjoy the characters. In Oryx and Crake, however, the protagonist is a boy named Jimmy who is an insecure sex-addict who has a pathetic adoration of his best friend (the one who kills almost every last human with those pills I mentioned) and little care for anyone or anything else. He has no problem watching child porn, visiting prostitutes, or locking out his former co-workers when he is inside an air-proof dome and they are outside in a world full of riots and dying people. His one redeeming quality would be his love for the lovely Oryx, but he sleeps with her behind his best friend's back and pays more attention to the version of her in his head - the one on a pedestal - than who she really is. All the other characters are minor ones, and most are either scorned or worshipped by Jimmy too the point that the reader doesn't know much about them but his opinion.
I apologize if I wrecked the plot for anyone who was going to read this book, but honestly, you would probably not have enjoyed it much anyway. And if you are a midly paranoid individual who hates drug companies and distrusts the scientific community, I'm guessing you'll enjoy it despite spoilers I may have included.
So if you, like me, have a "hero's journey" project, or any other project, for English class or any other class, I strongly recomend you do NOT choose Oryx and Crake.
Happy Reading!
