Hana by Lauren Oliver

Published February 28, 2012.

Author website.

The summer before they're supposed to be cured of the ability to love, best friends Lena and Hana begin to drift apart. While Lena shies away from underground music and parties with boys, Hana jumps at her last chance to experience the forbidden. For her, the summer is full of wild music, dancing—and even her first kiss. 

But on the surface, Hana must be a model of perfect behavior. She meets her approved match, Fred Hargrove, and glimpses the safe, comfortable life she’ll have with him once they marry. As the date for her cure draws ever closer, Hana desperately misses Lena, wonders how it feels to truly be in love, and is simultaneously terrified of rebelling and of falling into line.  (goodreads.com)

I had to go back over my review of DELIRIUM because for the life of me I can't remember much of anything from that book.  Apparently I really liked it (loved it is more on par there) and I was desperate to read more of the story. It's funny how tastes can change in such a short amount of time.  My DELIRIUM  review was posted about a year and a half ago.

That's not to say I wouldn't still like DELIRIUM if I read it again because my tastes don't change THAT drastically but having read far more like stories since I think I'd look at it with a different eye.  Yes, I'm still a fan of ROMEO & JULIET except I now know it's true point, and it's not all about star-crossed lovers.  I'm still a fan of non-douchey boys and even Oliver's writing.  But within the time since I've read DELIRIUM one major issue has been brought to my attention that would completely throw a wrench in the reality of the story - children growing up unloved by parents.  Really this would create a society of feral children.  Children can subsist in the mechanics of parenthood like feeding, changing, etc.  But love is a pretty huge factor in a kid's developmental years.  Just look at all those orphans in eastern Europe.  Removing love from society is far more detrimental to its well-being than it is beneficial.

So that's what I went in to HANA with, this reformed view of Oliver's word tickling my mind.  It wasn't a bad story but because I couldn't remember what really happened in DELIRIUM I had a hard time placing HANA so that was a nagging factor throughout.  Personal, obviously.  By the end I kind of remembered where it was because Hana encounters Lena after she received the dog bite so I have a vague idea of what and when.

Ultimately it was nice getting into Hana's head a bit and see her basically being scared straight.  She doesn't want to be cured but at the same time the thought of being caught rebelling is far too horrifying for her.  She's a really dynamic character that I do wish I'd seen more of in DELIRIUM (I'm assuming I didn't because she isn't really mentioned in my review but I do remember her).  I think there's more of a struggle there for her, more of a tear, than what Lena had.  Really I think she would have made a better MC than Lena.  Maybe I would have remembered more of DELIRIUM if that were the case.  It wouldn't have been so "standard" a story that way.  Not to mention there are so many other ways to approach someone like Hana because she's all aspects of the world: rebel and conformist.  She doesn't draw a hard line in the sand and it's really a struggle for her.  I would have liked to have seen her through her cure, to see if it really took, what her brain was like afterwards.

I enjoyed HANA, obviously.  I wasn't as thrilled with the writing as I appeared to be with DELIRIUM, especially the lack of contractions.  A lot of 'I am''s going around that annoyed me.  But it was a good glimpse of Hana and provided her with so much more depth.  I haven't read PANDEMONIUM yet but I hope she's in there more and it doesn't just focus on Lena.  And from HANA alone I was able to suspend my disbelief enough in the world to keep reading because I think everything else fit and there was an obvious care and craft to the world itself.  It didn't appear to be thrown together in a blender and spit out.  I can't say if that would hold true if I re-read DELIRIUM or tried to get into PANDEMONIUM though.

Ban Factor: High - Those kids rebelling against the system.  Can't have that, children thumbing their noses at adults.  Breeds malcontents!

The Unidentified by Rae Mariz

Published October 5, 2010.

Author website.

Kid knows her school’s corporate sponsors not-so-secretly monitor her friendships and activities for market research. It’s all a part of the Game; the alternative education system designed to use the addictive kick from video games to encourage academic learning. Everyday, a captive audience of students ages 13-17 enter the nationwide chain store-like Game locations to play. 


 When a group calling themselves The Unidentified simulates a suicide to protest the power structure of their school, Kid’s investigation into their pranks attracts unwanted attention from the sponsors. As Kid finds out she doesn't have rights to her ideas, her privacy, or identity, she and her friends look for a way to revolt in a place where all acts of rebellion are just spun into the next new ad campaign.  (goodreads.com)

You know, THE UNIDENTIFIED had a good premise but the overall execution ended up being rather ho hum for me.  At the end of the day it was about the social outcast coming to grips with the social strata in her school with the end result being the nonconformists conforming to the nonconformists' conformity.  I was actually kind of disappointed.  I'm not really sure what I was expecting but I know it was definitely something a little more than a higher tech Heathers (which is an awesome movie, THE UNIDENTIFIED, not so awesome of a book).

Kid is your standard I DON'T WANT TO FIT IN chick that purposely goes out of her way to not blend in with the crowd.  Too bad for her that has the adverse effect and her nonconformist attitude gets picked up by the mall/school sponsors as the new uncool cool.  Really, a bit on the lame side.  The anti-popular popular.  Kid then gets branded and her best friend totally hates her for it because BEST FRIEND has been trying soooooooooo hard to get branded (aka sponsorship and free stuff with access to a VIP lounge) whereas Kid obviously bucked the system.  A boy gets involved that equally contributes to the screwing up of things because her other best friend, Ducky Mikey, totally digs her but, of course, doesn't say anything until it's too late and then holds it against her.  Brilliant.

Kid makes an effort to seek out The Unidentified, whom I originally thought to be this epic paramilitary group that could exist in Red Dawn or something but it turns out they're just the school freaks with weird hair that buck the system even more than Kid.  More disappointment.  I saw The Unidentified "twist" coming almost as soon as it entered simply because it played out exactly as what it was.  But whatever.

The more I write about THE UNIDENTIFIED the more annoyed by it I become.  For a book that plays at being covert and espionage-ish is ended up being completely dull and nothing more than your standard high school fare set in a slightly futuristic mall setting with some video games for classes.  The world itself was probably the most unique part of the story: the government ran out of money for education so it started being subsidized by private companies and the whole system ended up being one giant ad campaign with students vying to be each company's number one star.  It's also a world with a lot of anti-kid laws like curfews, a lack of regard for the first amendment where kids aren't allowed to congregate anywhere, walk anywhere, simply because they may cause trouble.  But that latter part isn't touched on too much.  Kid doesn't really go out into the world but once and it's intricacies are off-handedly mentioned as she looks for people.  The story world is pretty strictly confined to the mall.  But outside of that, it's the same story repeated ad infinitum.  There was nothing about that aspect that stood out to me.

In my opinion file this one into the copycat category.  Not really dystopian simply because the world isn't anywhere near built up enough to grasp onto that genre but it's slightly unsettling.  Education going into the private corporation sector for funding is slightly horrifying.  But the story itself is a rehash, playing out like yet another teen movie with this epic We Are The Teen World ending and not much standing it out against the rest.

Ban Factor: Medium - There's swearing and sexual references going on but one would actually need to READ the book in order to find them. That's a non-issue for banners so that alone should make it slide right under their radar.  Maybe.

YAckers Review: Legend by Marie Lu

Published November 29, 2011.

Author website.

What was once the western United States is now home to the Republic, a nation perpetually at war with its neighbors. Born into an elite family in one of the Republic’s wealthiest districts, fifteen-year-old June is a prodigy being groomed for success in the Republic’s highest military circles. Born into the slums, fifteen-year-old Day is the country’s most wanted criminal. But his motives may not be as malicious as they seem.


From very different worlds, June and Day have no reason to cross paths—until the day June’s brother, Metias, is murdered and Day becomes the prime suspect. Caught in the ultimate game of cat and mouse, Day is in a race for his family’s survival, while June seeks to avenge Metias’s death. But in a shocking turn of events, the two uncover the truth of what has really brought them together, and the sinister lengths their country will go to keep its secrets.  (goodreads.com)

Fellow YAcker Emily was our Keeper of the Book for the month of March and of her choices us ladies  unanimously chose LEGEND by Marie Lu.  We were SOOOOOOOOOOOO excited to read this one!  I mean, how could not be?  All the awesome things that were being said about it, all the rave reviews?  How could we go wrong?

. . .

Well, read on to see some wrongness . . .

Laura: Soooo has anyone started Legend?

Melissa: Yeppers. Am I the only one the colored font is driving batty?

Sya: Started today. I have a uk arc so no coloured ink just different fonts.

Me: I'm waiting until the last possible second. But this shouldn't be any surprise by now.

Sya: I finished it last night. Quite impressed although I have a few unanswered questions.

Melissa: I agree, Sya. Interesting, intriguing, but it kind of leaves you hanging. And I never got over my font dislike.

Me: I've started it. The font thing isn't really bothering me but it is pretty noticeable. I'm not far enough into it to have an opinion yet.

Sya: So are the alternating viewpoints printed in wildly different colours?

Me: The type face is definitely different and the color is a brownish instead of black. You can tell against the standard font the other POV is in. I'm still kind of ambivalent about the story. I have just over 100 pages left. I like June for how she kept to character after the shoe dropped but I need to see where this is going first.

Me: Just finished it. I'm still ambivalent. It's a topic I've seen plenty of times, a story I've read in plenty of books and it

Me: dammit

Me: it's really not stand-out to me. A few things: 1) Did I miss the part where it's explained how the US ended up fracturing like it did? 2) Did I missed the part where it explains how SoCal all of a sudden is getting massive hurricanes? 3) Why does the Republic have electro-bombs that disable guns when they're the only ones using them? That's not a wise weapon to use in war since you'd screw yourself, the poor people they're constantly fighting aren't armed like that and it appears to have no other discernible use except to come in conveniently at the end. Why have a weapon that would temporarily make themselves impotent? Why don't they all just give themselves charlie horses at the most inopportune moments? This bothers me. 4) Points for no love triangle.

Me: I hate to say it but I can kind of see how this had a hard time selling to publishers. It's pretty well written but it ultimately blends pretty well with the already desolate dystopian landscape. At the end I'm not pressed to read the next book. I kind of don't care enough. I'm a buzz kill, aren't I?

Laura: I'm having a hard time getting into this book. I'm granting it a further 50 page grace period but as the magic eight ball says, "Outlook not so good."

Melissa: ‎1) no. It was never explained. 2) ditto. 3) No effing idea. and 4) I agree. Huh. I liked it when I first finished it (aside from the font thingy), but I'm having a hard time making it sound interesting. Maybe because it really wasn't??

Sya: Yeah, I feel the same Melissa... I've been trying to write up my review and it's coming across as distinctly meh. BUT... I did really like both June and Day and was intrigued by the society that was being portrayed. Sadly, this was tempered by the fact that I didn't know why everything was actually like that. But then, I've been re-reading The Hunger Games and you don't really find out why THAT society is fractured either. However, Legend rather lacks the wow-factor that THG has. Also, I spent a lot of my time reading it trying to figure out how it was inspired by Les Miserables (which, I admit, was probably tougher having only seen the musical - I was all, "that's Eponine... no... THAT's Eponine" and I'm not even entirely sure who Eponine is...).

Sya: Also, Donna - excellent point re. Electro-bombs. They are an entirely stupid idea.

Melissa: I can see the Les Mis thing going on (I think Tess is supposed to be Eponine; or maybe Day? Whatevers...), but I don't think Legend was thought through enough to be really truly inspired by Les Mis. I think I'm getting tired of dystopian novels now.

Melissa: Or officially tired. Whatever.

Me: THG was an amazing novel/series that is untainted by its own followers so it's going to stand out by default. Aside from the fact that it's awesome. It's because of that awesomeness that I didn't NEED to know why the Earth sharted. I had so much else to occupy me that it was inconsequential and I could easily overlook it. Here it's more of the same and especially when world issues keep getting pointed out (the society as a whole, not sure how that would be avoided but anyway, hurricanes in SoCal) my kinda bored brain is going to gravitate there to occupy itself. I'm cranky about dystopias/post-apocalyptic now too because they're starting to get tired. I think that's one of the reasons I'm gravitating more towards adult vamporn now, just for something different. I'm tired of contemporaries with effed up kids because they're so depressing, keep me away from YA vampires lest I stake them, dystopias/post-apoc are starting to blend and PNR isn't a genre I go near anyway. That would expose me to the likes of Hush, Hush and I may explode. So what's left? Not much more than scrapes.

Me: And seriously, those electro-bombs are driving me insane. The more I think about them the fucking stupider they become. It's like a guy punching himself in the dick when he has a hard on. WHY?

Melissa: Because she needed a plot device. :-D

Melissa: That's a good point, Donna, about THG. Hadn't thought about it that way before. (Though you do have to admit that the series fell apart after the first one. Right?) And you're right about the current state of YA fiction: if there's one book that stands out, everyone's bound to copy it. (No pressure for when it's finally my turn to choose a book for this group....) As a side note, I've noticed that for the first time in YEARS, my total YA reading has been down. There's just not much out there that's grabbing my attention anymore.

Sya: I think you're absolutely write about YA at the moment. The last Dystopian book I really enjoyed was Divergent. I recently read Pieces of Us, a contemporary that has put me off contemporaries possibly for life as it was so brutally depressing. On the topic of THG, I arrived at the party rather late and read Mockingjay in a sulk after it had been spoiled for me in a review. Having just re-read the trilogy as a whole I'm feeling a little obsessed with the whole thing. Absolute brilliance.

Me: I don't think the series took a total tank but I wasn't thrilled with Mockingjay (that was the last one, right?). I don't feel Katniss chose properly so it kind of bombed everything from that point on. But I do like it because it was one of the first of it's kind in this new wave of depressing. If I had the time I'd read it again to see if it still lived up. I'm sure it would.

Laura: Yeah so me and Legend aren't going to happen. I hate to skip a book but I can't even get interested in it enough to hate it and rip it a new one. I AM A BAD BOOK CLUB FRIEND.

Me: Between this and WHEN THE SEA IS RISING RED, you should hang your head in shame. Granted I'm about to set the latter on fire but that's okay. I hated Bella less than the pretentious twat in WHEN THE SEA . . .

Emily: I personally loved it. I thought she did a great job of pitting two good characters against each other, and while I feel like the story wasn't new, it was fun. I look forward to the next book.

Emily: well, after reading all of the comments, I must note that I read an arc that had the same color font and style throughout. As I said earlier, the plot wasn't what was interesting to me, it was the characters. I don't know why there were electro-bombs, except that maybe the rebels or whatever they were called also have guns. I dunno. Laura I hate that you couldn't get into it..what was it?

So I think we evened out.  It was OKAY but it had it's issues and ultimately it read like something we've all read before.  Something to file into the "yet another dystopian" category.

This month's participating YAckers -

• Melissa of The Book Nut
• Sya of The Mountains of Instead
• Laura of A Jane of All Reads
• Me
• Emily

Ban Factor: Medium - Some swearing and, of course, children bucking the system and doing things THAT AREN'T GOOD FOR THEM.  We all know how banners hate that.

YAckers Review: When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

Published October 4th, 2011.

Author website.

Hannah Payne’s life has been devoted to church and family. But after she’s convicted of murder, she awakens to a nightmarish new life. She finds herself lying on a table in a bare room, covered only by a paper gown, with cameras broadcasting her every move to millions at home, for whom observing new Chromes—criminals whose skin color has been genetically altered to match the class of their crime—is a sinister form of entertainment. Hannah is a Red for the crime of murder. The victim, says the State of Texas, was her unborn child, and Hannah is determined to protect the identity of the father, a public figure with whom she shared a fierce and forbidden love.

A powerful reimagining of The Scarlet Letter, When She Woke is a timely fable about a stigmatized woman struggling to navigate an America of the not-too-distant future, where the line between church and state has been eradicated, and convicted felons are no longer imprisoned but chromed and released back into the population to survive as best they can. In seeking a path to safety in an alien and hostile world, Hannah unknowingly embarks on a journey of self-discovery that forces her to question the values she once held true and the righteousness of a country that politicizes faith and love. (goodreads.com)

This book is meant to incite rage in its readers, whether it's of the feral intolerant side that foams at the mouth when Christianity is questioned or the blaspheming side that has nightmares about such a world as showcased in WHEN SHE WOKE existing. Only Laura and myself waxed poetic about abortion this month. Or maybe we took a cheese grater to it. Either way our feelings were similar, getting all riled up in the right spots and finding the Where's Waldo Dickhead in the Chromed oblivion but we ultimately liked it. For all the anger it induced, it was written phenomenally and without a hint of preaching. How's that for authorial self-control? Read our thoughts at the official Keeper of the Book's place this month, A Jane of All Reads.

Ban Factor: High - Abortion. That word alone would have the banner running with matches blazing.

Shift by Charlotte Agell

Published September 30th, 2008.

In fifteen year-old Adrian Havoc's world, Homestate rules every aspect of society: identity cards need to be carried at all times, evolution is a forbidden topic of discussion, and religious education is enforced in daily "rapture" doses. If life weren't hard enough, now come the threats that the end of the world--SHIFT--is quickly approaching. But Adrian refuses to accept things as they are. He sets out for the toxic Deadlands on a trip that may very well alter the course of the universe. (goodreads.com)

SHIFT had such crazy potential if you're reading the blurb but getting into it, it just felt rushed. Scenes changed in a jolted, jerky sort of way and information was thrown at you without much explanation. Like how the US got to be in this Homestate situation to begin with. Apparently nuclear bombs dropped and took out all of Massachusetts. From what I could tell, Adrian was living in either Connecticut or Rhode Island. Based on driving distance and the directions they were talking about traveling and through which states, those are the only two options that made sense. What didn't make sense was how the entire region wasn't affected by nuclear fallout.

By the time I got to the end of the book I just felt like all of the information was dumped on me and then ran like water on Teflon. It could have been so much better if the pace was slowed down, situations were dwelling on a little more and things weren't so forced. Odd and awkward inserts of curse words throughout the story made it a little weird to read. Every time I came across it it just felt misplaced and it was jarring to read as a result. The psychic sister was nothing more than a tool that helped advance the plot more easily and the penguin was just an excuse to get them to travel. Once it was set free, it stopped serving its purpose and to me it ultimately felt like a sorry excuse to once again further the plot.

Adrian is a bit of a non-conformist with a mother that apparently doesn't care much about him because he disappears for days at a time without her so much as worrying. His whole character just felt like it was trying too hard so I never really connected with him. Shriek, as I said above, was just a plot-serving tool that made sure the pieces were set up for Adrian to nicely resolve the conflict. It felt way too easy and because it was so rushed I was left unsatisfied at the end.

There were some neat concepts and I think the world was broaching on something that could have been awesome but I just felt not enough time was spent in really digging into not only the story but the characters. They were caricatures in their own story instead of actual people. I couldn't believe a lot of it because of the distance I felt. SHIFT felt like a paint-by-numbers story created to ride on the dystopian wave. It had potential, but it's execution was weak and lacking. I can be left wanting in a book but there has to be some satisfaction there. Here there really isn't much. The writing was decent but in a simple kind of way. There wasn't much going on between the lines and I felt that was another area where it could have enriched the story more.

Ban Factor: High - With swearing and the breaking down of a devout Christian regime, the banners would be twitching.

Enclave by Ann Aguirre

Published April 12, 2011.

Deuce lives in an enclave, deep underground. Her friends are her family, her life revolves around training to become a Huntress, one of the elite cadres who protect the enclave.

Deuce is partnered with a mysterious Hunter named Fade, who is said to have lived in the surface world as a young boy. When she and Fade discover that the neighboring enclave has been decimated by the tunnel monsters - or Freaks - which seem to be growing more and more organized, the elders refuse to listen to warnings. And when Deuce and Fade are exiled from the enclave, the girl born in darkness must survive in daylight, in the ruins of a city whose population has dwindled to a few dangerous gangs. As the two are guided by Fade's long-ago memories, they face dangers, and feelings, unlike any they've ever know. (book back blurb)

It's reading books like this that make me wonder whether I'd be able to function in a post-apocalyptic group setting or not. I'm not one to follow blindly. Shit, I didn't understand why people followed Dumbledore so blindly let alone me myself doing it in a real life setting. So to see Deuce growing up under such indoctrination but seeing the cracks in the facade make it all the more realistic for me.

Deuce's disillusionment of her society doesn't happen instantly or unrealistically. She sees things that she knows aren't right. She comes back with information that's ignored and she's threatened in order to keep her mouth shut. Through the actions of the highest few she begins to see what's on the other side of the curtain and she's not liking this whole ruling by fear thing. The thing is they don't like her asking questions and since Fade wasn't one of them anyway, off they go! Have to keep order and all of that. Narrow-mindedness at its best.

Fade is the outcast so he's a natural contender for a love interest but when Stalker enters the picture, things get a little weird and Deuce gets a bit of Stockholm syndrome, just after the fact. That aspect of the love triangle I didn't get. I got to see Deuce's enclave mentality still kicking around, only the strong survive and all of that, but considering the humanity that's been shown in her, the fact that she would develop any kind of attraction to him is unsettling to me, especially considering what he did to her, and to Pearl. I'm not getting that.

I loved the world that Aguirre created in the tunnels. I could see and feel the darkness and the dank and the dirt. No one was really ever clean down there and that was prominent to me. I couldn't picture any of the characters, even after they bathed, looking clean. At least not our level of clean.

The Freaks reminded me of vampires a little bit, the underworld types that I've seen in the later Blade movies or 30 Days of Night. They're ravenous flesh eaters, not blood suckers, but just the pictures in my mind. They're nominally humanoid but not. And the fact that they evolve makes them more of a threat than just some hungry, feral beasts that need to be beaten back. And the notion that only the strong survive really comes into play. Is it strength to remain in the status quo or strength to shake the complacency for the sake of safety?

I liked how when they got up to the city that the sights remained in Deuce's eyes. The unknown was still the unknown and you could feel her uncertainty just when she was looking around. The sun was this beast that was hellbent on cooking her alive. That juxtaposition of such uneducated thought in an advanced being really adds complexity to the story. She's almost like a caveman that can have a coherent conversation. Although what kind of got to me was her language. The story was in first person but the language she was using I wouldn't think would come from someone that had been born underground with little education and had trained to be a fighter. She certainly had some flowery prose about her that was shocking.

But overall I really felt ENCLAVE. Not only the grime from the tunnels but I felt the characters as well. None of them were all that simple even though they may have looked it from the outside. Fade is far more than just the quiet fighter. Stalker is more than just the prick overlord of a gang of brats. Pearl is far from weak and Deuce shatters and rebuilds herself, breaking down her old beliefs for a completely different set. They're all products of their world. They've grown to adapt, blend in and survive and this is the result. They just have different ways of doing it and it's interesting watching them do it.

I'm looking forward to the next installment in the Razorland series. ENCLAVE ended at such a cut-off point that I was a little frustrated with it. It left a lot of questions unanswered and it was definitely a means to carry on to another book. But in this case that's okay. Because I really want to read it.

Ban Factor: High - A post-apocalyptic, godless world where kids go all Lord of the Flies on each other? Oh yeah. This one's getting the kibosh put on it.

The Blending Time by Michael Kinch + Giveaway!

Published October 1st, 2010.

In the year 2069, turning seventeen means mandatory Global Alliance work assignments that range from backbreaking drudgery to deadly canal labor. Trying to survive in a world that's been ravaged by plagues and environmental disasters, three "s'teeners" from the harshest 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 and rebuild Africa after a devastating solar flare.

But the continent itself - roiling with civil war and mercenaries intent on crushing the blending program at any cost - poses the gravest danger. Separated, the three friends struggle to escape the violence and chaos, and somehow reunite. But will following rumors of a mountain hideout lead them to sanctuary, or cost them their lives? (book back blurb)

This book was a weird one for me. I wanted to really like it but at the end of the day, my like for it ended up falling pretty short of where I thought it was going to be.

My favorite aspect of it was the grittiness. I love gritty books that actually make you feel gritty and not in a grossed out way. I've read books where the characters are just gross but the world around them isn't. That just makes me gag, dirty characters. But when the world is gritty, and the author's awesome enough to actually project that onto your person through words, that's fantastic. It helps me anchor into the book more. I feel like a greater part of it and even if I end up not liking it all the way through, I at least felt something from it. Kinch does such a good job of portraying this dusted, wasted world that was once ours that I couldn't help not feel its grit all over me.

I really liked the characters too. I was rooting for all three of them as they tried to make their way through such a disorganized, corrupt society that disguises itself as something functioning. They're extraordinarily brave for taking the role of a blender a world away just to escape certain death in the canal. Despite the fact that they could be walking into it all over again. And again, I have such a soft spot for authors that beat the ever-loving snot out of their characters. I think Reya took it the worst but came out all the stronger for it. That's not to say D'Shay and Jaym had it easy but, well, to save some spoilers, what Reya went through was infinitely more terrible than what the boys had to handle.

Most importantly, once they all got to Africa, the story felt real to me. The presence of the pseudo-government faded and the realities of a dying world floated to the surface with all of their open sores on display. I believed what I was reading for that part. I didn't so much buy what was going on in the US and the total dissolution of society in a span of 50 years. I felt that wasn't time enough for all of that to happen. But I was able to suspend my disbelief enough to get over that hurdle and to Africa where I think Kinch really nailed it. There it became less about what the world had become and more about how people were trying to survive. I liked the focus shift that THE BLENDING TIME provided in that respect.

I didn't like the slang that was used. Not for any particular reason. It just really grated on me. It's basically just a lot of words chopped in half. It came off more lazy than anything else and it grated me every time I read one of the characters using it. Like 'scrapers for sky scrapers. I just didn't find it necessary.

Other than that I don't really have a valid reason for not loving THE BLENDING TIME. Maybe it was just the timing I had reading it. Or my mood those couple of days. Ultimately, it's a really good book. A hell of a lot better than some of the dystopians that are coming out now that completely spit in the face of worldbuilding. It just didn't grab me. I don't think I run into instances like this a lot but when I do, it bothers me. Why didn't I love this book? I have no idea. It just didn't hit me right. I don't know what else to say.

But I'd definitely recommend it to others and I know I'd like to keep reading the series to find out what happens with the characters. It's a great dystopian that, I feel, is more deserving of a place on the shelves than some of the other prettier covers that act as nothing but a facade for lackluster verbiage. Despite my lower rating, you should read this. Hopefully it'll hit you harder than it hit me.

Giveaway time!!!

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Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick + Contest!

Pub date September, 2011.

An electromagnetic pulse sweeps through the sky, destroying every electronic device and killing billions. For those spared, it's a question of who can be trusted and who is no longer human . . .

Desperate to find out what happened and to avoid the Changed, Alex meets up with Tom - a young army veteran - and Ellie, a young girl whose grandfather was killed by the electromagnetic pulse.

This improvised family will have to use every ou

nce of courage they have just to survive. (book back blurb)

When I first saw Ilsa's new book in a Publisher's Weekly article highlighting look-out YA books at BEA this year, I emailed her immediately and started hunting for her publicist's information to get a copy. I loved, loved, LOVED Draw the Dark so much that Ilsa could have written PUDDING!!! in blue crayon for 180 pages and I still would have wanted to read it. Guys, I don't love books like this very often but DRAW? OMFG love. So I saw a chance to jump at ASHES and I took it.

After some back and forth I ended up with a copy and my ultimate goal was to read it before BEA and then gush about it here and send my attending readers over to her signings to get copies. Obviously I'm just reviewing it now but gush I did already. And I hadn't even finished it at that point. Now that I've finished it, I want to consume it piece by piece, perhaps marinated in a nice remoulade sauce, so I an absorb her talent for my own.

Srsly, ASHES is an apocalyptic/dystopian novel that all other YA apocalyptic/dystopian novels should aspire to. None of those lazy worldbuilding, OMG lurve triangle piles of horse poop. Well, there's a little bit of a love triangle but it's more like two disjointed lines that haven't connected yet that are on like 25% opacity in Photoshop. It's all about the world and the characters surviving in it. Everything is so expertly figured out that it's hard, if not impossible, to find loopholes in the logic. The shit that should happen does. Nothing is conveniently explained away. There are no fades to black and then POOF everything is better. Logic rules. Science rules. This all makes the story pwn.

Alex is one hell of a strong, resilient character that almost wasn't. To keep this review spoiler-free, I won't say why but I will say when this girl needs to keep pushing forward, there isn't much that'll be able to stand in her way. And just when you think she gives up, she slaps you upside the head and proves you wrong. Ellie is the type of character you want to slap. Yeah she's young and scared but Alex is a better person than I probably would be if our roles were switched. Would I leave Ellie behind? No. Would I slap the snot right out of her when she gets petulant? Probably. At the very least be screaming my head off. My patience with children is pretty low under normal circumstances. And Tom. Dear Tom. What a saving grace he was. A perfect compliment, filling in the gaps in Alex's survival knowledge. And I loved how Ilsa balanced that relationship that, for the most part, wasn't there like it is in many other similar books.

One of the reasons why I liked ASHES so much. Romance isn't the focus. It's hardly even a blip on the radar. The book is about the world, the destruction of it and these characters' subsequent survival. Romance is tertiary at best and that's how I like it. There's just enough in there to spark something but she has you so sucked into the world that it doesn't really matter.

Ilsa's writing is detailed almost to a fault. There were a couple of places where it went on a little too long and gave a few too many details that probably wouldn't have hurt the story if they were removed but ultimately I didn't mind. All that detail played well when it mattered. Again, no spoilers but I will recommend not reading this book while eating anything. There were many times I found myself a little nauseous reading some of the things that happened. In a good way, if that's possible.

I alluded to it before but I'll say it straight out: Ilsa is merciless with her characters. She shows them no mercy. Anything that can happen to them will. They don't get reprieves, they don't get spared, they don't amazingly escape dangerous situations without some damage done at least. Logic holds strong to these characters and just because Alex is the MC doesn't mean she's boo-boo free. Holy hell no. If anything she gets it the worst. Ilsa does everything with her characters that I hope to do with mine. It takes true bravery to submit your babies to this kind of torture and I commend her for it. Not many authors do this and it makes her work all the stronger for it.

And last but not least, there are zombies. Sort of. They're not the already-dead-and-then-alive type of zombies. They're Changed. And evolving. Oh man they evolve and that makes them all the more terrifying.

Seriously, this book is terrifying. It will have you looking up at the sky and wondering what if. Because it could happen. It makes sense. So why wouldn't it? Truly frightening that at any second ZAP! Gone. And what then? ASHES is the type of apocalyptic/dystopian novel that gives other like-minded novels complexes. It puts them to shame in terms of worldbuilding and character development. And the ending? GAHHHHHHHHHHHH! If you don't want to read more after that ending, then go to a hospital and have them check your pulse because I think you might be dead.

Read ASHES. Now. Or when it comes out. You will not regret it.

Contest time!!!

You want an ARC of ASHES? You know you do. Because you want to bask in its awesomeness. So just fill out the form below for your chance to win a copy. Open to US residents 13 years of age and older only. One entry per person per email address. Duplicate entries will be deleted. Contest ends June 14th at midnight, EST.

The Limit by Kristen Landon + Contest!

Published September 7, 2010.

In a world not too far removed from our own, kids are being taken away to special workhouses if their families exceed the financial debt limit imposed by the government. Thirteen-year-old Matt briefly wonders if he might be next, but he quickly dismisses the thought. After all, his parents are responsible with their spending, right? But after Matt's family unexpectedly goes over their limit, Matt's whisked away to a workhouse where far more serious dangers exist than anyone on the outside realizes - dangers that could change his reality forever. (book back blurb)

See, for me, that blurb exerts far more tension than what the story did. Yeah, the threat is there but it's kind of cartoonish and the way it's told kind of waters down the tension that could be there.

To be fair, this is more of a middle grade novel than a young adult. Just the age of the MC and the style it was written in showcases that so I'm not a prime candidate to judge this one. But I think I can still make a few comments on it.

I loved the kids in this story. I just thought each one of them so individually unique, with their own quirks that stood out so vividly on the page that I felt they were right there next to me. Matt was so real and up until the end, even Honey Lady (a nickname Matt gave her that existed, for the most part, in his head) was exceptionally real. I think that was the strongest part of this book; the characters.

The world I could believe too. I'm not sure of the greater overall motive of the government to put spending caps on people or take their children away. It's really government spending and deregulation that ultimately screws over debt but that's beside the point. It felt real to me for personal reasons I won't go into. I kept being able to put myself in Matt's shoes and I found it horrifying. When you're that young you have such faith in your parents that they're doing right and when you find out they're not infallible, it hurts. In this world it just so happens the children that have to have that realization end up paying for it. Again, I don't really get the dynamics but I'll swallow it.

The parts leading up to the workhouse were really good, grinding in tension in the background through backstory and hint-dropping. I liked it. But I think it unhinged a little bit once the workhouse came into play. I liked THE BIG REVEAL towards the end but I think the context could have been a little better. I don't want to give anything away so I'll say that the threat isn't all that present in the way it's presented. Good for trickery but, to me anyway, bad for the ultimate execution of it.

The biggest thing that threw me, though, was that every adult seemed to be suffering from Idiot Adult Syndrome. Not as common in YA (I don't think, at least not in what I've read) but much more prevalent in MG where all of the adults end up being dopes for the sake of allowing the kids to rise to the top and solve the problem. I likened it to those really obnoxious live action shows on Disney or Nickelodeon where the parents are just caricatures of what parents really are. I absolutely facepalmed a few times with some of these adults, especially towards the end. All I'll say is, to save the plot, if you're a member of SWAT and need to rely on kids to connect the dots in front of your face for you, you need to lose your job for the safety of the greater public.

I was ultimately okay with the book until the end when every adult in the story turned into a raging moron. That just aggravated me. I understand that the kids need to be the ones to solve the problem in these books but it doesn't make them look any better to plop them in a pool full of idiots. Really, it was a good story. I enjoyed it. I didn't think it carried the amount of tension it would have liked to (especially by the way of the blurb) but it was enjoyable. Just beware of idiot adults. They run rampant in The Limit.

Contest Time!!!

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Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Pub date: March 22, 2011.

What if you knew exactly when you would die?

Thanks to modern science, every human being has become a ticking genetic time bomb—males only live to age twenty-five, and females only live to age twenty. In this bleak landscape, young girls are kidnapped and forced into polygamous marriages to keep the population from dying out.

When sixteen-year-old Rhine Ellery is taken by the Gatherers to become a bride, she enters a world of wealth and privilege. Despite her husband Linden's genuine love for her, and a tenuous trust among her sister wives, Rhine has one purpose: to escape—to find her twin brother and go home.

But Rhine has more to contend with than losing her freedom. Linden's eccentric father is bent on finding an antidote to the genetic virus that is getting closer to taking his son, even if it means collecting corpses in order to test his experiments. With the help of Gabriel, a servant Rhine is growing dangerously attracted to, Rhine attempts to break free, in the limted time she has left. (goodreads.com)

I'm not a chick that falls easily into hype but sometimes it can be hard to avoid, like with this book. It seems like EVERYONE absolutely LOVES this book. I have not come across one blogger saying anything to the contrary. Of course I could be missing a few but those that I do wander across, love. I had to wade into Goodreads reviews to find black sheep like myself that found serious fundamental issues with this story on multiple levels. Did I buy into the hype initially? To an extent. Books get pimped all the time but it's not all that often that they're swayed so heavily like Wither was. So when I went to read it, my expectations were slightly higher than normal. Unfortunately the book didn't even come close to meeting them. And of course I then started to freak out a little and that's when I started looking for the less than stellar reviews. Did anyone else feel like I did about Wither? Yes. They're the minority but yes. As some asstastic random commenters on Goodreads would have it, anyone with a dissenting opinion against the overwhelming majority should just shut the hell up and keep their opinions to themselves or suffer the wrath. Sillies. Does that sound like me?

See, with dystopian fiction, you can't just insert random catastrophic, shock value events for people to live around without having a thorough understanding of how our society works today and how this current society would potentially break down under such apocalyptic situations. So when I see a statement in the ilk of 'the ice caps were vaporized long ago by warfare' with zero environmental nor humanstic repercussions for such an event, my suspension of disbelief gets punched in the face. It can only take so many hits before it just gives up. DeStefano punched my disbelief in the face. A lot.

If the elements in a dystopian world don't make sense, I just can't take the rest of the plot seriously because everything ends up disjointed. Let's take those ice caps (which is a near quote from the book, by the way). They were vaporized by warfare. Breaking that down, we would have to have weaponry that ran so hot it could vaporize Antarctica. Which holds a steady -35 degrees Celsius. Okay. Hot weapons. But if they're cataclysmic enough to do that, what about the rest of the planet? Would it not get completely annihilated? People, we'd turn into Mercury if there were weapons that could do that. Since weapons of mass destruction have not moved beyond the nuclear warhead in the 65 years it's been in existence, and this story is only set about 70 years in the future, it's relatively logical to assume that they haven't moved much beyond that. And since nukes now are capable of ass raping humanity, what this premise is saying that they've created something beyond that that have been used but people still exist. No, sorry. You can't just pick and choose which elements to remove without considering the greater repercussions of that action. And this isn't even considering the environmental impact of releasing millions of square miles of ice as vapor into the atmosphere. Guys, we'd have beach-front property in Kansas if that happened. We'd have floods of Arc proportions that would have even Noah going 'fuck this shit.'

Do you see what I mean? Since we have Rhine going from Manhattan to Florida, from that tiny statement alone my suspension of disbelief has a black eye, a bloody nose and is missing a tooth. Factor in a nonsensical virus that no one can explain yet everyone's looking for a cure to (how you can fight something you know nothing about is beyond me and how no one knows how it works after 50 years is absurd), women dying before men (when, scientifically, women outlast men, and again, this virus seems to function for no other reason than shock value), how the society has de-evolved to a Victorian polygamists' compound (despite coming from a feminist culture where women should be smart enough to hold their crotchtal regions hostage and switch control since, you know, they're the ones with the power to control the fate of procreation in their . . . nether regions), the whole of the planet has destroyed itself in viral chaos except for North American (which, upon first mention, had me going 'are you fucking kidding me?' either the author is shitting on the rest of the planet for being feral idiots that couldn't survive the virus or she's shitting on Americans for being dumb enough to believe that we're the only ones superior enough to survive this, either way it's bad), girls getting slaughtered for not being bride material (in a society where a womb is like gold, makes total sense O_o) and the kick to the nuts the author gives sensical dystopian fiction, my suspension of disbelief was pureed in a blender and drunk for breakfast.

The world failed hard. Nothing made sense and everything seemed to exist to serve the plot. DeStefano pushed aside what should have been valuable research for shock value and pretty dresses.

And then there were inconsistencies in the plot, like Rhine's desperation to leave. Yet when she's presented with perfectly valid windows of opportunity, she passes on them for one stupid reason or another. With her earthly clock winding down, you'd think time would be valuable. Waste none, right? So instead of taking the opportunity to, literally, walk away, Rhine tried to made mad dashes in the most horrible, inconvenient ways. Why? I have no idea other than to make the plot more interesting.

Linden's an idiot pedophile whose ignorance is made to actually be appealing. He doesn't know what his dad is doing. His father keeps him in the dark. Maybe he isn't so bad after all. No. He's no more ignorant of what's going on in his own damn house than the Germans were of the camps they were living next to. Sorry, guy, but you don't live in the middle of a shit pile and not smell the stink. It really bothered me how his whole situation attempted to make Rhine's blooming Stockholm syndrome justifiable and even okay. No! She was kidnapped! Her "sister wives" are being raped! This is not okay! But of course Rhine gets a free pass. In a house where Vaughn is salivating to produce loinfruit, Rhine doesn't have to get down with her pedo-husband for . . . reasons . . . I guess. She just weasels her way out of it. Or someone didn't want to write a rape scene from behind the eyes of the MC. Either or.

Any antagonist in this story is implied and insinuated but never shown. Yeah, we see Vaughn with a body in a gurney but anything outside of that window is pure conjecture. We hear gunshots but the door's closed before anything could actually be proven. The fear is spread by rumors and wild imaginations. As far as we know, there is no threat. But people's wagging jaws and out-of-context scenes keep the fear alive. We have no idea what really happens outside of Rhine's eyes. She doesn't even know what happens outside of her eyes. She just guesses.

The words on paper were good enough to get me from beginning to end. I was definitely compelled to read through to the end and find out what happened to Rhine, despite the fact that I found her to be a whiny brat without the brain she kept saying she had in Manhattan. I liked the oldest sister wife whose name escapes me right now. I found her the most dynamic, the most compelling character. But the world is written so lazily and the situations so nonsensical that I just couldn't get into it. I couldn't push the niggling back far enough to enjoy it. Sorry, but I'm science-minded and I don't like it when people fuck over science for the sake of dances and bubble baths and candies. If I can't believe the world in which these characters live, how I even begin to believe them?

In all honesty, I'd bet money on the cure for this virus being in Rhine's multi-colored eyes. It's mentioned too hard and fast in this book not to carry weight further on down the line. You don't show a gun in the first act and not have it go off in the third, you know? So I would not be surprised if Rhine lives beyond her scheduled 20 years because of some genetic mutation caused by those multi-colored eyes. Or the twin thing factors into it, or both. They both survive because they split off from the same egg, thus each carrying the same mutation to both embryos and saving both children, only one's dominant and one's recessive. The twin thing is pretty dominant in the story too, and it was mentioned that Rhine and her brother were the first non-deformed twins her parents had. But I might be thinking way too far ahead of myself here because this is all branched off of scientific accuracy, which this book spits in the face of.

When it comes down to it, remove the characters from the story and set them in ether and you have a love triangle coupled with kidnapping. It's not a "normal" love triangle where the contenders are evenly matched. One is made pretty obvious over the other here and the other two chicks are there basically for shock value. They're not competition (I guess) but they don't really serve a purpose other than to serve Rhine's plot.

Chances are you'll get sucked into it but personally, you have to turn your suspension of disbelief way up to get through it. Like I said, I was compelled to read through to the end and I liked the ending. The story could rightly end there (although we know it doesn't), it was nice and cleanly finished in a happy ending sort of way. It was nice. But the rip-my-hair out parts far exceeded anything good I found in Wither. There are far better, and far more believable, dystopians available out there that couple not only a strong (and less squick-worthy) romance but a well-built, believable world to set it in.

Delirium by Lauren Oliver + Contest!

Published February 1, 2011.

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 government demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Haloway 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. (book back blurb)

Wow. There are few words to describe this book but one of them is that. Wow.

Every word of this story burrowed under my skin and festered there, leaving me starving for more once the story ended. It's funny because as much as I loved the story, I want to say it was too long. And I really think it was. For every lyrical word I read, I felt a good third of them could have been chopped and still maintained the dignity and integrity of the story in its entirety. If it were shorter, I don't think I would have missed anything. I would have still found myself as attached to the story as I am now. But at the end of the day, I didn't mind reading all of those extra words. They just put more fluffy in the bed of story I was lying in.

I loved seeing Lena change as the story progressed and watching her become her own Hana without realizing it until it'd already happened. I'm not a big fan of playing up the "I'm so normal" schtick that YA female protags have a tendency of doing but it's what's in the seemingly "normal" that the story lies. There is a point to it so if you find yourself rolling your eyes as you read about yet another teen MC finding herself plain next to her gorgeous best friend, just hold it out. It redeems itself. Although what I found pretty pointless was the constant mentioning of Lena's height. By the end of the book I couldn't place its relevance to the overall story. I didn't get why it was mentioned constantly. Can anyone else help me out here?

What I really liked was how Oliver had a way with such seemingly little lines that did such an amazing job of portraying Lena's naivety exactly how it was, without pretenses. My favorites:

"I hate it when my aunt looks at me like that, like she's reading all the bad parts from my soul." (pg. 71)

"It's [The Telltale Heart] supposed to be a story about guilt and the dangers of civil disobedience, but when I first read it I thought it seemed kind of lame and melodramatic. Now I get it, though. Poe must have snuck out a lot when he was young." (pg. 117)

I'm a fan of Romeo & Juliet and I really liked the way Oliver bled that theme over into Delirium. In reality, it's a pretty commonly-used trope, especially in YA, but I really liked it here. Alex is the type of YA guy that needs to be permeated throughout YA fiction. He's not a dick, he's not a stalker, he treats Lena how she should be treated. Shock! So I was really pushing for the two to end up together because I found him such a redeeming and valuable character to the story.

I thought the world Oliver developed was absolutely amazing. More than once I found myself getting audibly revolted with how that society functioned. Lobotomizing the population as a means to control them? How terrifying is that? It's the nineteenth century redux. I also liked how the vantage point rose up off of Lena's shoulders every once in a while so the reader got a better view of the world. How it's all fenced in and electrified and the crazy that lies behind its borders (and within it). I also liked how the illusion broke down as the story went on, shattering the safe indoctrination Lena got as she was growing up. Really I liked how Delirium can be viewed as what can happen when the government takes protecting us from ourselves a little too far. It's scary and who's to say it couldn't happen? Really?

I haven't read Before I Fall but if the writing is anything like Delirium, I'm going to swallow the thing whole. This book induces some serious writer envy in me. It's a level that I would strive to reach and can only dream of achieving. I have no doubt Delirium will prevail as one of the defining novels of dystopian literature for years to come. It doesn't always have to be about society totally breaking down. This one's all about society winding itself far too tight. If you're looking for a dystopian book that doesn't involve society functioning at its basest animal instincts for survival, Delirium is it. And the writing and plot and characters are all fantastic enough to suck you in and hold you strong as well. I wouldn't want to forget mentioning that.

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Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (Spoilers)

Published August, 2010.

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.

It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has

had a hand in the carefully laid plans - except Katniss.

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay - no matter what the personal cost. (book flap blurb)

Spoilers!!!

You know, I don't go into books with high expectations of anything. When I read the last Harry Potter book, the bar wasn't high. I just expected the same type of quality that the author provided in her previous six books. I think that's a perfectly reasonable expectation. Unfortunately I don't think it was met. I felt the same way for Mockingjay, albeit it less disappointed.

The overall writing, I felt, lived up to the prior books. I didn't feel any kind of dramatic, unexplained shift in the characters or the writing itself. I think everything fit nicely. What I didn't like was how Katniss didn't really play an active roll in her own life. She hid when things got too hard and just went with the flow for everything else. In retrospect, she's always been kind of like that but I felt it was most prevalent in this book.

People are tools for her and I like Gale's turn of action and pretty much saying fuck it. He knew he wasn't as useful to her once she had nothing left, therefore he was out of the picture and Peeta was it. Although I felt that was a little ridiculous considering his condition. He's essentially a whacked out mutt but Katniss was holding on to the shreds of what she remembered him as. Personally, I wouldn't have procreated with him. I know auto-erotic asphyxiation can be a turn-on for some people, but he'd be the one to take it too far, if you get what I'm saying.

It's just . . . the second half of the book was a little much for me. I accepted the redundancy in the second book but to have it a third time? There couldn't have been another way? And the fade to black moment right at the explosion at the mansion, I was so horribly pissed at that. Boom, Katniss blacks out and when she wakes up, the war's over, the Capitol is taken and the rebels won. What? Are you freaking kidding me? That's what the entire book was leading up to and Katniss gets knocked un-fucking-conscious? Seriously?

And the thing is, the people that were killed, I didn't feel enough of a connection to them to care. Yeah, they played decent enough parts throughout the series but nothing major. Certainly no Sirius Blacks or whichever of the Weasley twins dies, can't remember which it was. It was all about Katniss and Gale and Peeta and the asshattery of the Capitol. There wasn't much room for anything else. So when people started dropping, I really didn't feel much of anything. I know it was done for impact, the cost of war and all, but the people that were lost, I think, didn't make much of an impact when they were alive to make one when they died.

I didn't find the twist at the ended much of a twist. In fact, everything leading up to it really spelled it out pretty clearly. Snow, part deux. I think a different route could have been taken and I was surprised at Katniss's response to the second coming of the Hunger Games. After everything she'd been through, two games, the pain of the Capitol, she was willing to support it getting done again, to a generation of completely innocent children that were going to pay for their parents mistakes, because she'd lost her sister? I don't find that believable. She was too against it to begin with. Even with her sister's death, I don't think she would have made that decision. Shock value, I guess, but I didn't find it realistic to her character.

I liked crazy Peeta, and Haymitch was, as always, a great character. They were my favorites this time around.

Was the story entertaining? Yes. I really did enjoy it. I rocketed through the pages because I had to see what was going to happen next. That definitely hadn't changed. Was I thrilled where it went? No. Did I find a big chunk of it to be a huge cop-out? Yes. Fade-to-blacks are bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. That was such a huge buzzkill I'm still not over it. I think because of that fade-to-black it made me even less sympathetic to Prim's death. Actually, I didn't know it was her that died until a few pages later because I didn't remember her description. I didn't get to see Katniss's reaction. She just said how much it hurt. Blah.

It was decent enough. I've certainly read better series enders. I've also read worse. It's entertaining, the characters are, for the most part, still themselves, but Katniss is a puppet shoved along in the story which I found hard to enjoy. I guess that's the point, but even within that role she wasn't much else. She just kind of went with it. It was disappointing. As I said, most of the second half of the book was a little much for me, whether it was implausible, too out there or I was just disconnected from it all, I think it could have been done differently, and better. But what are you going to do?

Dystopian is the New Vampire

Do you think it is? There's certainly been a swell in dystopian literature in the YA market as of late. I think The Hunger Games paved the way for that to happen in some way, at least. Not that that's a bad thing. It's always good when good books spurn a trend. In my mind's eye, the other books that follow will have to live up to that expectation, hence spurning more good books. So far, I haven't heard much bad about dystopian novels that are coming out now. Unfortunately the same can't be said for other books with rather fangless glittering things that spawned neutered unevil creatures but that's besides the point.

Publisher's Weekly has a great article about some of the whys of dystopian literature in YA, mainly why kids are so drawn to it. Basically it boils down to the what ifs. What if this did happen? Why, it's happening now. Can it really happen? Is that where we're headed?

Sure, they don't offer the sunniest of outlooks on life but many dystopian YA out there is a good examination of what's going on in society today. Every single one of them mirrors at least some aspect of our society that's going wrong as a whole. Kids (and anyone, really) read these books and ask themselves what would they do in that situation. I know I've questioned the notion of how I would fare in a nuclear winter. Would I survive? Would I lead? Would I follow? Would I go it alone? What's the easiest way to make a spear from a rock and a stick?

What's funny, though, is that a few of these horrors have already been lived through in some way. The end of the world. I'm sure many people living through the Black Death in Europe thought the end of the world was upon them as millions of people died of a disease they couldn't fight. 1/3 of the population of Europe at the time was decimated. Paris had so many dead it ran out of space to put people so it started burying corpses under the streets. Google Paris catacombs and you'll see what I'm talking about. When you have 75,000 people die in a 30 mile radius in a week, what the hell do you do with them all?

Then there was the Inquisition where people were hunted for being different. Back them it was witchcraft. Today it's homosexuality, being pro-choice, Democrat, liberal, whatever. Maybe they shouldn't so much as be what ifs but when ifs.

There are YA dystopian books coming out about the planet running out of oil. What if? Oh no. When if. It's already proven that oil is in short supply and we'd be lucky to last another 100 years on what the earth is spitting out. What will happen then? These stories aren't so far reaching but so long as they're in the pages of fiction, they can stay imagined and anyone reading them can read from the comfort of their home surrounded by loved ones. They make you appreciate what you have and they tend to change your ideas about what's a right and what's a luxury.

Ever watch the series Life Without People on The History Channel? If you want a real life dose of what could happen in a dystopian world, watch that show. Nevermind the huge changes. The little things like the disappearance of bananas would shock you. Who would think that without people to cultivate the kind of bananas that we eat, they'd disappear entirely? Extinct. Ants would also die out. And raccoons. Anything that's become dependent on humans for survival would die with us.

So what gets you reading dystopian? Personally I think it's much richer than a lot of the fluff that seems to be floating around on shelves right now. Plus I love the social commentary it offers, thinly veiled behind an insane plot. While I tend to avoid such bleak things altogether (the apocalyptic marathons The History Channel tends to have is depression-inducing), some of these books are too damn good to resist. If you're looking for some other dystopian YA titles, Publisher's Weekly has a lengthy list of upcoming releases.