So this is the final book in the MaddAddam trilogy. I was so-so on book 1, and I loved book 2. I felt like the second book tied together all of the crap you had to sit through in the first book. Then the third book ties it together even more, and even wraps everything up.
Here are a few things I learned along the way, and stuff I took note of. I don’t think that’s a great sentence, but it’s Monday, so CUT ME SOME SLACK!
We’re first introduced to Zeb in book 2, and he’s a semi-main character. In book 3 he’s a definitely main character. His real name is Zebulon, which is a totally awesome name. Maybe my next dog will be Zebulon. Anyway, there is a lot of back story about Zeb in this book. We learn about the time he ate a bear, and all the times he had to change his name and identity to get away from a variety of bad guys.
Also there’s a lot of Zeb and Toby back and forth. They are in love and together, but Toby’s still paranoid that he doesn’t love her.
One of the coolest / weirdest sections of the story was where the Gardeners/MaddAddamites, Crakers, and Pigoons all banded together to defeat the painballers. Blackbeard (one of the Crakers) can talk to the Pigoons, so they make a treaty with them. Everyone wants to get rid of the painballers, so the Gardeners promise not to eat any pigoons, and the pigoons promise not to eat people. Unfortunately, that means no more bacon.
Toby teaches Blackbeard to write, and eventually to read. Halfway through (maybe earlier), Toby takes over Snowman the Jimmy’s “telling the story from Crake” duties. By the end though, Blackbeard is telling the story. It’s kinda sweet. There was a line that Toby said, when she was thinking about explaining certain words to the Crakers that I really liked:
Scars are like writing on your body. They tell about something that once happened to you.
I was listening to this in the car, so I didn’t get to write down the quote word for word, but I liked the idea behind it.
Ok, here’s a spoiler for the end. I had mixed feelings about it. It’s below in white.
SPOILER:
Near the end of the last disk, Toby and Zeb do the Gardener marriage ceremony. It’s really touching, and everything Toby (and apparently Zeb too) has wanted. They’re happy together “married” for like a millisecond. Then Zeb and some other men go away to investigate mysterious smoke. They never come back. Toby basically wastes away and then kills herself in the forest with mushrooms. I DID NOT LIKE THIS PART. Toby finally got some happiness and peace, and she didn’t even get to enjoy it. Zeb was finally with the right woman, and he didn’t even get any time with her. I was kinda pissed. It did wrap up with Blackbeard’s potential child being named Toby, which was sweet too. However, I felt like she and Zeb deserved better. This would’ve been a five star book if Zeb and Toby got a little bit of a happy ending.
Anyway, I recommend experiencing this trilogy. The characters were great, and it was kinda amazing how the stories all wrapped into each other.