Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Darkly Delightful Dystopian

If you read books then you've probably been hearing about these dystopian thingies, right? Yea, that's what I thought. Here are a few that I've read and a few that I intend to read, click on the covers if you want to check them out on Goodreads.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

In a future Chicago, 16-year-old Beatrice Prior must choose among five predetermined factions to define her identity for the rest of her life, a decision made more difficult when she discovers that she is an anomaly who does not fit into any one group, and that the society she lives in is not perfect after all.

Page turning. Addictive. Unputdownable. 'Nuff said?









The Hunger Games by Susan Collins

Could you survive on your own, in the wild, with everyone out to make sure you don't live to see the morning?

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival.


This book really doesn't need any sort of introduction. Just don't watch the movie before reading the book, 'kay?


Wither by Lauren DeStefano

By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.

When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems.

Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement. Her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next, and Rhine is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape--before her time runs out?Together with one of Linden's servants, Gabriel, Rhine attempts to escape just before her seventeenth birthday. But in a world that continues to spiral into anarchy, is there any hope for freedom?

Haven't read this one yet, but it's next on the MUST BUY list. And I gotta say I love the cover.


Blood Red Road by Moira Young

Saba has spent her whole life in Silverlake, a dried-up wasteland ravaged by constant sandstorms. The Wrecker civilization has long been destroyed, leaving only landfills for Saba and her family to scavenge from. That's fine by her, as long as her beloved twin brother Lugh is around. But when four cloaked horsemen capture Lugh, Saba's world is shattered, and she embarks on a quest to get him back.

Suddenly thrown into the lawless, ugly reality of the outside world, Saba discovers she is a fierce fighter, an unbeatable survivor, and a cunning opponent. Teamed up with a handsome daredevil named Jack and a gang of girl revolutionaries called the Free Hawks, Saba’s unrelenting search for Lugh stages a showdown that will change the course of her own civilization.

I have this one, but haven't gotten around to reading it yet. It would be next on the TBR list if my boyfriend hadn't grabbed it off the bookshelf first! Also loving this cover, it's very striking.

Another dystopian has just sold to a publisher, and it was the first manuscript I read in my role as an intern! Pretty cool to see the inner workings of publishing.


What are your fave dystopian picks? Have you read any of these? What are your thoughts?

9 comments:

  1. I downloaded the sample for Blood Red Road, and I've heard great things about it, but I don't really enjoy the dialect in the dialogue. Is it like that the whole way through?

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    1. I haven't read it yet but when I do I'll let ya know.

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  2. Ooh you reminded me of how much I want to read Wither.

    Haven't been around here in a long while. How are you doing?

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    1. Hi Misha, it's good to be back in the land of Blog! And good to see you around again. :)

      I'm well thanks, just been really busy with word, two internships and uni, so haven't had a whole lot of time for blogging, but I want to be here so am determined to make time.

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  3. I've read Divergent and The Hunger Games - loved them both. Also just finished Article Five by Kristin Simmons - good. And Delirium by Lauren Oliver.

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    1. I've got Delerium on my bookshelf too, but haven't gotten around to reading it yet. What did you think?

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  4. Awesome dystopian picks, I have two of the same on mine! :)

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  5. I've got my eye on Wither. That one sounds brilliant.

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  6. I loved Wither! I can't wait to read Fever. I have it already and it is definitely close to the top of the TBR pile.

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