Dystopian February: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Dystopian February Kick-Off 2011 is hosted by Presenting Lenore


Delirium (Delirium #1) by Lauren Oliver

Summary from Goodreads:
Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing. They didn’t understand that once love -- the deliria -- blooms in your blood, there is no escaping its hold. Things are different now. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the governments demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Holoway has always looked forward to the day when she’ll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy.
But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable: She falls in love.

My thoughts:
I give it a 5/5.

The first book in a dystopian trilogy, Delirium starts off strong and maintains that intensity throughout the rest of the book.

I enjoyed all the epigraphs at the start of each chapter that dealt with the beliefs of the society.

A society that believes love is a disease, Amor Deliria Nervosa.
The Government has a cure and every 18-year-old must undergo the procedure to eradicate it.
Lena Holoway, albeit nervous, is counting the days to her own cure. A cure against the infection her own mother succumbed to and the reason Lena believes she lost her.
Then she meets Alex, who bears the mark of the cured but doesn't act like the others.

The story continues to keep the reader in suspense on how they will be together especially since love is against the law.

Dystopian February: XVI by Julia Karr

Dystopian February Kick-Off 2011 is hosted by Presenting Lenore


XVI by Julia Karr


Summary from Goodreads:
Nina Oberon's life is pretty normal: she hangs out with her best friend, Sandy, and their crew, goes to school, plays with her little sister, Dee. But Nina is 15. And like all girls she'll receive a Governing Council-ordered tattoo on her 16th birthday. XVI. Those three letters will be branded on her wrist, announcing to all the world—even the most predatory of men—that she is ready for sex. Considered easy prey by some, portrayed by the Media as sluts who ask for attacks, becoming a "sex-teen" is Nina's worst fear. That is, until right before her birthday, when Nina's mom is brutally attacked. With her dying breaths, she reveals to Nina a shocking truth about her past—one that destroys everything Nina thought she knew. Now, alone but for her sister, Nina must try to discover who she really is, all the while staying one step ahead of her mother's killer.

My thoughts:
I give it a 3/5.
The plot simply didn't live up to its description.

The synopsis made it sound like it would be about Nina dealing with her upcoming 16th (or sex-teen) birthday and being tattooed and what that would mean for her by having her choices being forcibly taken away and where men held all the power and women were subjugated to their whims.
I expected to learn more about the consequences of losing her rights along the lines of The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood but it never really went anywhere with it.

Instead it deals more with her mother's secrets and Nina's struggle with her mother’s abusive ex-boyfriend and his threats.

The story was rather repetitive and I could not fully engage with the main character or her plight.
It didn't end on a cliff-hanger but I was left wanting more.
Hopefully with the sequel, "The Sisterhood" and the spin-off, "Cinderella Girl" - I will find the story I was hoping to read.

The Scorch Trials by James Dashner

The Dystopian Reading Challenge is hosted by Bart's Bookshelf
October 1, 2010 through December 19th 2010.

This is book 5/5 in the reading Dystopian challenge:
The Scorch Trials (Maze Runner #2) by James Dashner


Summary from Goodreads:
The Maze was only the beginning...

Solving the Maze was supposed to be the end. No more puzzles. No more Variables. And no more running. Thomas was sure that escape meant he and the Gladers would get their lives back. But no one really knew what sort of life they were going back to.
In the Maze, life was easy. They had food, and shelter, and safety... until Teresa triggered the end. In the world outside the Maze, however, the end was triggered long ago.
Burned by sun flares and baked by a new, brutal climate, much of the earth is a wasteland. Government has disintegrated--and with it, order--and now Cranks, people covered in festering wounds and driven to murderous insanity by the infectious disease known as the Flare, roam the crumbling cities hunting for their next victim... and meal.
The Gladers are far from done running. Instead of freedom, they find themselves faced with another trial. They must cross the Scorch, the most burned-out section of the world, and arrive at a safe haven in two weeks. And WICKED has made sure to adjust the variables and stack the odds against them.

Thomas can only wonder--does he hold the secret of freedom somewhere in his mind? Or will he forever be at the mercy of WICKED?

I loved The Maze Runner so I was surprised to find I like this one more.

The Scorch Trials starts where The Maze Runner ended and just when Thomas and the Gladers start to think they are safe, more creepy things start happening in a fast-paced and thrilling way.

The new setting brings it own challenges/variables and new characters are introduced that pushed the story further and faster instead of dragging it along.

A Crack in the Sky by Mark Peter Hughes

The Dystopian Reading Challenge is hosted by Bart's Bookshelf
October 1, 2010 through December 19th 2010.

This is book 4/5 in the reading Dystopian challenge:
A Crack in the Sky (Greenhouse Chronicles) by Mark Peter Hughes



Summary from Goodreads:
Thirteen-year-old Eli Papadopoulos is worried. Even though he’s a member of the most powerful family in the world. Even though his grandfather founded InfiniCorp, the massive corporation that runs everything in the bustling dome-cities. Even though InfiniCorp ads and billboards are plastered everywhere, proclaiming:

DON'T WORRY! INFINICORP IS TAKING CARE OF EVERYTHING!

Recently, Eli noticed that there’s something wrong with the artificial sky. It keeps shorting out, displaying strange colors and random images. And though the Department of Cool and Comfortable Air is working overtime, the dome-city is hotter than it’s ever been.
Eli has been raised to believe that the dome-cities are safe, that the important thing is to keep working and consuming, and that everyone is secure and comfortable in InfiniCorp’s capable hands.
But now he begins asking questions.
All of a sudden, operatives from a dangerous band of terrorists keep contacting him. The Friends of Gustavo—or Foggers—want to tear down everything InfiniCorp has created. They promise Eli that they have the truth he seeks—if he’s brave enough to handle it.
Eli isn’t convinced. And he’s about to find out that in the dome-cities, being a Papadopoulos isn’t enough to save a rule-breaker like him from being sent far away to learn right-thinking. In his new home, the Tower, Eli meets Tabitha, once at the top of her Internship class, now a forgotten slave. Together, and with help from Eli’s beloved pet mongoose, Marilyn, they just might be able to escape . . . and try to make a life for themselves in the scorched wilderness outside the domes.


I don't know how many installments the author plans but this is only the beginning and it still reads like he threw every dystopian trope in a pot, stirred and served it up.
Well except for Marilyn; the telepathic, deus ex machina AKA mongoose, whose POV covers a few chapters. That's new.

I'll read the sequels simply to find out where this story leads but this has been my least favorite book I've read for the challenge.

The Blending Time by Michael Kinch

The Dystopian Reading Challenge is hosted by Bart's Bookshelf
October 1, 2010 through December 19th 2010.

This is book 3/5 in the reading Dystopian challenge:
The Blending Time by Michael Kinch



Summary from Goodreads:
Congratulations on turning age seventeen. You are now ready for placement by the Council government.
For kids in the year 2054, turning seventeen means they’re ripe for Global Alliance work assignments that range from backbreaking drudgery to deadly canal labor. Trying to survive in a desiccated world that’s been ravaged by plagues, AIDS III, and environmental disasters, three “s’teeners” from very different backgrounds think they’ve gotten lucky. Jaym, Reya, and D’Shay are chosen to be among thousands of blenders whose task is to help repopulate Africa after a solar flare left its people sterile.
But the continent itself—roiling with civil war and mercenaries intent on crushing the blending program at any cost—poses the gravest danger of all. Separated, the three friends struggle to escape horrific situations, somehow reunite, and reach a camp in the mountains that promises salvation from the harsh and threatening world.

We are introduced to the three main characters; Jaym, Reya, and D’Shay and their diverse backgrounds. At the age of seventeen, known as s’teeners, they are issued mandatory work assignments. They meet and become friends as they travel by cargo boat to Africa to blend (breed) with the population that were left sterile from a chromosomal difficulty due to a solar flare. Naturally, this does not go over well with many of the local people. They are separated and left to fend for themselves until they escape and can get back together.

Although the premise sounds promising I found it a little flat but interesting.

The Blending Time is Michael Kinch's debut novel and it ended so abruptly that I checked to see if there would be a sequel at his website and yes, he is currently working on the next book, with a possibly for a trilogy.

His website also has photos from the time the author lived in Africa and where the idea for The Blending Time originated, including a photo of people making watering cans like the ones D'Shay works on.

The Compound by S. A. Godeen

The Dystopian Reading Challenge is hosted by Bart's Bookshelf
October 1, 2010 through December 19th 2010.

This is book 2/5 in the reading Dystopian challenge:
The Compound by S. A. Godeen


Summary from Amazon:
Eli, the 15-year-old son of a billionaire techno-preneur, has spent the last six years with his family in the massive underground shelter his father has built, knowing that nuclear war has destroyed the world he knows—and killed his grandmother and his twin brother, who couldn't reach the compound in time. With nine years to go before the air outside will be safe to breathe again, the food supply shows signs of running out, but Eli's father has a solution—provided they jettison all morals and ethics. Repulsed and already suspicious, Eli begins investigating his father's claims, and sets up a family death match against a man who grows increasingly irrational and sinister but no less powerful. As far-fetched as the premise may be, Bodeen keeps Eli's actions true to life and uses clues planted fairly and in plain sight. The audience will feel the pressure closing in on them as they, like the characters, race through hairpin turns in the plot toward a breathless climax.

The Compound is a fast paced book that keeps the suspense going making it hard to put down but it does have its flaws.

On his 15th birthday Eli suddenly gets curious and starts to inspect the compound more closely and begins to questions his father's motives - this would have read better if his suspicions grew slowly over the six years in the compound.

His father had planned for every contingency yet somehow most of the food supplies are becoming contaminated. The cows dying, the wrong light bulbs for the hydroponics, etc., but his father even has a backup plan for that with the "supplements".

What is the true purpose of the compound and what are his father's intentions and why won't he let them leave?

The Other Side of the Island by Allegra Goodman

The Dystopian Reading Challenge is hosted by Bart's Bookshelf
October 1, 2010 through December 19th 2010.

This is book 1/5 in the reading Dystopian challenge:

The Other Side of the Island by Allegra Goodman

Goodreads summary:
From New York Times bestselling author Allegra Goodman comes a post apocalyptic novel about love, loss, and the power of human choice.

Honor and her parents have been reassigned to live on Island 365 in the Tranquil Sea. Life is peaceful there—the color of the sky is regulated by Earth Mother, a corporation that controls New Weather, and it almost never rains. Everyone fits into their rightful and predictable place...

Except Honor. She doesn’t fit in, but then she meets Helix, a boy with a big heart and a keen sense for the world around them. Slowly, Honor and Helix begin to uncover a terrible truth about life on the Island: Sooner or later, those who are unpredictable disappear . . . and they don’t ever come back.

The way it was written, the style of 'voice' used to tell the story reminded me of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. As if this all took place in the past and this was the telling of the way things used to be.

I thought it was interesting the way songs and sayings from our time was incorporated and recycled into propaganda by the Corporation and Earth Mother. "Your plan to come, Enclosure done-on earth as it is in heaven...
And lead us not into Inaccuracy, but deliver us from lies."

Plus, any story dealing with weather is censored, such as the Wizard of Oz and changing Dorothy's last name to Hale instead of Gale and she dreamed her way to Oz not swept away by a tornado.

My favorite character would have to be Octavio, the tree octopus.
Learn more HERE.

Pick of the Month - July

After looking over the list of the books I read in July - my top pick would have to go to "Unwind" by Neal Shusterman.
This haunting book will stay with you for awhile. Shusterman takes an unbelievable tale of harvesting body parts from kids and makes it realistic.
There is one chapter that you simply can not stop reading no matter how much you might try.



Summary by Goodreads: "In a society where unwanted teens are salvaged for their body parts, three runaways fight the system that would "unwind" them.

Connor's parents want to be rid of him because he's a troublemaker. Risa has no parents and is being unwound to cut orphanage costs. Lev's unwinding has been planned since his birth, as part of his family's strict religion. Brought together by chance, and kept together by desperation, these three unlikely companions make a harrowing cross-country journey, knowing their lives hang in the balance. If they can survive until their eighteenth birthday, they can't be harmed -- but when every piece of them, from their hands to their hearts, are wanted by a world gone mad, eighteen seems far, far away.
In Unwind, Boston Globe/Horn Book Award winner Neal Shusterman challenges readers' ideas about life -- not just where life begins, and where it ends, but what it truly means to be alive."