Category Archives: Readings

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YA Dystopian Books

What’s on my bookshelf ? 4

Today I would like to recommend a few books belonging to the very trendy genre of Dystopian fiction for Young Adults. Immensely popularised by The Hunger Games trilogy, this Fantasy sub-genre offers a wide variety of books, some really worth checking out.

Before providing you with a reading list, let’s remind ourselves of what the Dystopian genre actually is. From Goodreads:

“Dystopia is a form of literature that explores social and political structures. It is a creation of a nightmare world – unlike its opposite, Utopia, which is an ideal world. Dystopia is often characterized by an authoritarian or totalitarian form of government. It often features different kinds of repressive social control systems, a lack or total absence of individual freedoms and expressions, and a state of constant warfare or violence. Many novels combine both Dystopia and Utopia, often as a metaphor for the different directions humanity can take in its choices, ending up with one of the two possible futures.”

For a very long time, dystopian books were just science-fiction novels. But its great success in the last few years has required the renaming of the genre and the creation of a specific category on bookshelves…

So, on my bookshelf, you can find:

1- The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins (2008)

Teenagers fight to the death on live TV in a post-apocalyptic America. THE dystopian book every teenager has heard about, and most likely read. Made into a very popular movie this year.

2– The Chemical Garden trilogy by Lauren DeStefano (2011)

In a future America and because of a deadly virus, young people die in their twenties. As a consequence, society is collapsing. A powerful first book, with a second installment that was unfortunately much weaker. Wither is a must-read nonetheless.

3- The Eve trilogy by Anna Carey (2011)

United States, 2032: a deadly virus has wiped out most of the world population and survivors struggle to rebuild a free society. A great, fast-paced read for teenagers who are maybe not ready for “darker” books.

4- The Pledge by Kimberly Derting (2011)

In the imaginary country of Ludania, languages divide classes and words can kill. A powerful story about freedom of speech and democracy.

5- The Line trilogy by Teri Hall (2010)

In a future America, a dictatorship rules the country and a line encloses the US. Nobody crosses it. But what’s on the other side? A good book for youger readers who want to familiarise themselves with the dystopian genre.

6- The Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness (2008)

A chilling story about a society where everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts.
7- Blood Red Road (The Dust Lands series) by Moira Young (2011)

A tale of adventures in a violent post-apocalyptic world. Very intense. Not an easy read, but it has received numerous literay prizes.
8- Under the Never Sky trilogy by Veronica Rossi (2012)

In the future, the world is a wasteland and survivors live under a protective dome… I haven’t read that one yet, but it has recieved raving reviews.
9- Article 5 by Kristen Simmons (2012)

In the future, the US are a dictatorship, ruled with The Moral Statutes. Nobody has rebelled, yet. I haven’t read that one either, but I’ve heard great things about it.
10- The Maze Runner trilogy by James Dashner (2009)

 This one has received mixed reviews but it keeps popping up everytime I search for YA dystopian books… Have you read it? What did you think?


That’s it for YA dystopian books sitting on my bookshelf… Any other books you’d recommend? Feel free to comment!

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Waiting On Wednesday – 11

“Waiting On Wednesday” is a weekly event, hosted by book blogger Breaking The Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating.

This week I’m waiting for Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas (expected publication: August 7th 2012 by Bloomsbury USA Children’s). This is a YA High Fantasy novel and a 2012 debut.

From Goodreads:

“After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin.

Her opponents are men—thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the kings council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she’ll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom.

Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilirating. But she’s bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her… but it’s the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.

Then one of the other contestants turns up dead… quickly followed by another. Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.”

Does this sound great or what?

What are you waiting on this week?

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Waiting On Wednesday – 10

“Waiting On Wednesday” is a weekly event, hosted by book blogger Breaking The Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating.

This week I’m waiting for Skylark by Meagan Spooner (Expected publication: October 1st 2012 by Carolrhoda Lab). It is a YA Dystopian novel with a magic twist. It is also a 2012 debut. It sounds great and I love the cover… Can’t wait for that one!

From Goodreads:

“Sixteen year-old Lark Ainsley has never seen the sky.

Her world ends at the edge of the vast domed barrier of energy enclosing all that’s left of humanity. For two hundred years the city has sustained this barrier by harvesting its children’s innate magical energy when they reach adolescence. When it’s Lark’s turn to be harvested, she finds herself trapped in a nightmarish web of experiments and learns she is something out of legend itself: a Renewable, able to regenerate her own power after it’s been stripped.

Forced to flee the only home she knows to avoid life as a human battery, Lark must fight her way through the terrible wilderness beyond the edge of the world. With the city’s clockwork creations close on her heels and a strange wild boy stalking her in the countryside, she must move quickly if she is to have any hope of survival. She’s heard the stories that somewhere to the west are others like her, hidden in secret – but can she stay alive long enough to find them?”

Visit Meagan Spooner’s website here.

What are you waiting on this week?

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Book of the Week – 8

This week I am reading a vampire book! It has been a while since I read a book with vampires in it, so I picked Sunshine by Robin McKinley (2003).

From Amazon:

“Rae Seddon, nicknamed “Sunshine”, works long hours in her family’s coffeehouse, making her famous “Cinnamon Rolls as Big as Your Head,” Bitter Chocolate Death, Caramel Cataclysm, and other sugar-shock specials that keep the customers coming. She’s happy in her bakery—which her stepfather built specially for her—but sometimes she feels that she should have life outside the coffeehouse.

One evening she drives out to the lake to get away from her family, to be alone. There hasn’t been any trouble at the lake for years.

But there is trouble that night for Sunshine. She is abducted by a gang of vampires who shackle her to the wall of an abandoned mansion, within easy reach of a figure stirring in the moonlight. Sunshine knows that he is a vampire and that she is to be his dinner. Yet when dawn breaks he has not attempted to harm her.

And now he needs her help to survive the day…”

Visit Robin McKinley’s website here.

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Waiting On Wednesday – 9

“Waiting On Wednesday” is a weekly event, hosted by book blogger Breaking The Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating.

This week I’m waiting for The Forsaken by Lisa M. Stasse (Expected publication: July 10th 2012 by Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers). It is a 2012 debut, a YA dystopian novel and it sounds awesome!

From Goodreads:

“As an obedient orphan of the U.N.A. (the super-country that was once Mexico, the U.S., and Canada), Alenna learned at an early age to blend in and be quiet—having your parents taken by the police will do that to a girl. But Alenna can’t help but stand out when she fails a test that all sixteen-year-olds have to take: The test says she has a high capacity for brutal violence, and so she is sent to The Wheel, an island where all would-be criminals end up.

The life expectancy of prisoners on The Wheel is just two years, but with dirty, violent, and chaotic conditions, the time seems a lot longer as Alenna is forced to deal with civil wars for land ownership and machines that snatch kids out of their makeshift homes. Desperate, she and the other prisoners concoct a potentially fatal plan to flee the island. Survival may seem impossible, but Alenna is determined to achieve it anyway.”

What are you waiting on this week?

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Book of the Week – 7

This week I’m reading The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin. I bought it when it came it out in September 2011 and it has been on my TBR pile since then… So, I know, I’m a bit late to this party, but so far I’m LOVING this book! Can’t wait to finish it…

From Goodreads:

“Mara Dyer doesn’t think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.

It can.

She believes there must be more to the accident she can’t remember that killed her friends and left her mysteriously unharmed.

There is.

She doesn’t believe that after everything she’s been through, she can fall in love.

She’s wrong.”

Check out Michelle Hodkin’s website here.

What are you reading this week?

 

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Bout of Books Read-a-thon – Day 6

 

Bout of Books is a week long read-a-thon, which has started on Monday, May 14th and will run until Sunday, May 20th.

Find out more here: http://boutofbooks.blogspot.co.uk/

Follow the fun on Twitter here: @boutofbooks

Check out today’s challenge/giveaway here: Book Poetry hosted by Smash Attack Reads!

I have posted my goals here: https://emcastellan.com/2012/05/12/bout-of-books-4-0-read-a-thon-goals/

My update:

Book I’m reading: The Pledge by Kimberly Derting

Number of pages I’ve read so far: 278/380
Total number of books I’ve read this week: 1 (Vixen by Jillian Larkin)

SO. I confess. I haven’t been reading a lot since yesterday because I have been catching up on Supernatural, season 7. I blame it all on Dean Winchester.

How have you been doing? What have you been reading?

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Bout of Books Read-a-thon – Day 5

Bout of Books is a week long read-a-thon, which has started on Monday, May 14th and will run until Sunday, May 20th.

Find out more here: http://boutofbooks.blogspot.co.uk/

Follow the fun on Twitter here: @boutofbooks

Check out today’s challenge/giveaway here: Shoe Challenge hosted by The Reading Housewives of Indiana

I have posted my goals here: https://emcastellan.com/2012/05/12/bout-of-books-4-0-read-a-thon-goals/

My update:

Book I’m reading: The Pledge by Kimberly Derting

Number of pages I’ve read so far: 190/380
Total number of books I’ve read this week: 1 (Vixen by Jillian Larkin)

I love The Pledge! I wish I didn’t have to work to keep reading it…

How have you been doing? What have you been reading?

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Quote of the Day – 9 + Bout of Books Read-a-thon Day 3

“We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La.”

George R.R. Martin (originally published in The Faces of Fantasy: Photographs by Pati Perret copyright © 1996 by Pati Perret)

 

 

On another note today…

Bout of Books Read-a-thon – Day 3

Bout of Books is a week long read-a-thon, which has started today Monday, May 14th and will run until Sunday, May 20th.

Find out more here: http://boutofbooks.blogspot.co.uk/

Follow the fun on Twitter here: @boutofbooks

I have posted my goals here: https://emcastellan.com/2012/05/12/bout-of-books-4-0-read-a-thon-goals/

My update:

Book I’m reading: The Pledge by Kimberly Derting

Number of pages I’ve read today: 106/380
Total number of books I’ve finished reading this week: 1

 

How have you been doing? What have you been reading?

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Waiting On Wednesday – 8 + Bout of Books Read-a-thon Day 2

“Waiting On Wednesday” is a weekly event, hosted by book blogger Breaking The Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating.

Today I have chosen Stolen Night (Vampire Queen #2) by Rebecca Maizel (expected publication: June 21st 2012 by St. Martin’s Griffin). It is the second installment in the Vampire Queen series and Infinite Days being one of my favorite books, I can’t wait for Stolen Night.

From Goodreads:

“Lenah Beaudonte should be dead. But having sacrificed herself to save another, she finds herself awakening with strange powers that are neither vampire nor human – and a new enemy on her trail. In her vampire life, Lenah had thought that being human was all she ever wanted; but the human heart suffers pain, heartbreak and loss. With her new powers growing and the dark force of the Nex after her soul, Lenah faces a choice: between the mortal love of gorgeous Justin, whose passion fed her human soul, and taking a different path to become the mistress of her own destiny, wherever that may lead …”

I interviewed Rebecca Maizel a couple of weeks ago, feel free to check out the interview here.

On another note…

Bout of Books Read-a-thon – Day 2

Bout of Books is a week long read-a-thon, which has started on Monday, May 14th and will run until Sunday, May 20th.

Find out more here: http://boutofbooks.blogspot.co.uk/

Follow the fun on Twitter here: @boutofbooks

I have posted my goals here: https://emcastellan.com/2012/05/12/bout-of-books-4-0-read-a-thon-goals/

My update:

Book I’m reading now: The Pledge byKimberly Derting

Number of pages I’ve read so far: 386/386 of Vixen by Jillian Larkin
Total number of books I’ve read: 1

How have you been doing? What have you been reading?