Book Club Guide

MaddAddam

by Margaret Atwood · 2013 · Literary Fiction

Key themes

The Crakers and what they inherit from humanity — including its stories
Toby as the reluctant mother of a new world
What survives an apocalypse — and whether it should

About this book

The third volume of Atwood's Oryx and Crake trilogy brings together the survivors of the biotech apocalypse — the Crakers, Toby, Zeb, Amanda and others — as they try to build a new world while the last of the old-world threats closes in. Atwood completes her argument about biotechnology, corporate power and what comes after the human.

Published in 2013, MaddAddam completes the trilogy that began with Oryx and Crake (2003) and The Year of the Flood (2009). Atwood described it as speculative fiction rather than science fiction because everything in it is based on existing technologies.

Discussion questions

The Crakers are Crake's designed replacements for humanity — without violence, without tribalism, without religion. How does Atwood show them developing the very things Crake designed them without?
Toby becomes the storyteller for the Crakers — adapting the history of Jimmy and Crake into mythology. What is Atwood saying through this about how stories transmit culture?
The novel brings together characters from all three books. Does the convergence feel satisfying — or is there something that gets simplified when the trilogy has to resolve?
MaddAddam is more hopeful than Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. How does Atwood earn this shift — and does the hopefulness feel true to the world she built?
The trilogy asks whether the human was worth saving. What is Atwood's final answer — and does MaddAddam complete the argument she began?