Oryx and Crake

This was four stars until the ending, because what the hell, ending.Kind of generic post-apocalyptic dystopian last-man-on-earth etcetera... but well-written and very readable. Wanting to find out what happened and how all the pieces fit together made for a compelling read.But. None of the three characters seemed especially like multidimensional people with real personalities. It was like...CRAKE: The immoral scientist who doesn't really have or understand human emotions, and thus thinks it's a good idea to destroy civilization and create a new, "better" species to replace humans on the planet.ORYX: The remarkably beautiful, compassionate, perfect woman who teaches the Children of Crake about empathy and stuff, and whom both of the other characters idolize and love.SNOWMAN: The ordinary guy who just happened to end up in the middle of events.Crake, meh, I'm sick of the “scientists just don't understand ART or EMOTIONS or WHAT MAKES HUMANS HUMAN and therefore they are going to destroy the world” trope. I don't buy it, it's an unrealistic strawman – a projection of people's fear of technology. And anyway Vonnegut already did it, so can we just move on?Oryx, cringe. She was a symbol, not a person. Presumably because that's what she was to Snowman and Crake, but ugh. She'd been through all sorts of shit but her fucked up past basically only affected Snowman, she didn't really seem bothered by any of it. She was sort of canonically ineffable and mysterious and blah blah women they are such strange creatures, like goddesses, so full of wisdom but you can never understand them, and then of course she gets put in charge of the realm of emotional stuff for the Children of Crake. She spends the whole book being a symbol and providing oblique, pseudo-deep non-answers to questions, and then gets killed without even being conscious for it, so that's cool I guess. I don't have enough suspension of disbelief for Oryx.Snowman/Jimmy, he's just this guy, you know? He makes a bunch of stupid mistakes throughout the book which I assume is supposed to show that he's JUST AN AVERAGE GUY and not really that bright or anything. I get that he's supposed to be pathetic, I just spent the book not really caring what happened to him and not being able to identify with him at all. Oh, he's also really passive and basically just lets stuff happen to him for the entire book.Then in the end you finally find out what led up to the destruction of civilization, but Crake's behavior isn't explained, and Oryx's true feelings are never revealed, and then the first really exciting thing happens in the present day and Snowman is hesitating, trying to decide what to do about it AND THEN THE BOOK JUST ENDS.Literally almost threw this one across the room when I got to the end.Actually, the more I think about the plot, the more I suspect it of being somewhat moralistic... e.g. Oryx and Jimmy, by their actions, convinced Crake that he was right about humanity (or just made him jealous), therefore them sleeping together indirectly brought about the fall of civilization. Which means it's just another book where an honest conversation or two (and maybe some open relationships) would have solved all problems, but NOPE, BETTER JUST DESTROY CIVILIZATION.Second edit: It's possible I'm just sick of dystopian stories about how basically human nature is going to inevitably lead to the apocalypse. It's even in the story that humanity destroys more than it creates (in the Blood and Roses game, where artistic and cultural achievements are weighed against acts of violence). I read this book right after [b:Cloud Atlas 49628 Cloud Atlas David Mitchell http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344305390s/49628.jpg 1871423], and feel like Cloud Atlas tackled that message better and in a way that makes more sense to me. Or at least made me feel less like not getting out of bed for a week.