Oryx and Crake (Margaret Atwood)

This tragic and gripping post-apocalyptic tale jumps back and forth through the life of young Jimmy who grows into solitary, doomed Snowman. It starts grimly enough, with the world divided into the gated, guarded, isolated Compounds of the elite, and the desolate, chaotic Pleeblands. As Jimmy grows, the world lurches more an more into an ecological disaster. He befriends a cynical genius named Crake, and finally meets Oryx, the object of his childhood fantasies, just as the final catastrophe befalls the human race. The origins of that catastrophe, and how it relates to Crake, Oryx, and the strange people who survive, makes for an enthralling, heartbreaking story.