Tagged: dystopia
Look What Just Arrived! (#11)
No, I did not just go on yet another book buying spree. In fact, exactly half of these books were given to me by either publishers or authors.
- The Color of Rain by Cori McCarthy
- The Transhumanist Wager by Zoltan Istvan
- Red Dragon White Dragon by Gary Dolman
- The Devil Incarnate by Jill Braden
- The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
- The Grass Crown by Colleen McCullough
The Color of Rain is an unusual book that I found through Grace’s blog, Books Without Any Pictures. Her description of it intrigued me so much that I went ahead and ordered it from my bookstore, read it in a day and will be writing my review for it shortly. For those of you that are curious, it’s the book that spurned me to write my ‘The Beauty of Fiction‘ article.
The Transhumanist Wager is something that I’m both excited for and reluctant about because while it’s something I might normally pick up on my own, I know it will be a controversial book to read and review here on my blog. Red Dragon White Dragon was sent to me by Gary Dolman’s publisher ages ago (2-3 months!) and only got here a few days ago. Hooray for Canada Post.
The Devil Incarnate was sent to me by Jill Braden’s publisher because they saw how much I loved The Devil’s Concubine (the first book) after I reviewed it through NetGalley. This second book is not necessarily better than the first, but it is different and I love the cover art even more.
The Kite Runner was a book recommended to me by a fellow book lover in real life and when I saw it at the library’s “fill a bag of books for $1” I knew I had to get it. It may be a while before I actually get around to reading it, but I’m definitely anxious to see what all of the hype is about. And of course the last book I bought for myself was The Grass Crown, the second book in Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series. It’ll take me a while to read, being over a thousand pages, but it will be great in that since I’m so far ahead in my book challenge I’m going to skew my results by only counting books with larger page counts. That, and Colleen McCullough is a great author.
So what are you guys reading lately? See anything you like here?
What Makes a Good Dystopia?
I know, I know. ‘Good dystopia’ is an oxymoron, but I think you know what I mean. Dystopias, ever since the release of The Hunger Games, have exploded in popularity both in the teen and adult markets. There are a lot of good ones out there, but there are a lot of bad ones too. But what makes a dystopia good (read: interesting) for the reader?
1. It has to be believable.
Many of you know my gripe about how the faction system in the Divergent trilogy would never, ever work because people are not like that. If dystopian fiction doesn’t have a dystopia that makes sense or could really happen someday, readers are not going to like it. Authors have to know enough about human nature and world politics in order to create dystopias that could really happen. Sadly, a lot of authors just seem to skip this general knowledge requirement and jump in head first.
Why was Orwell’s 1984 so popular? Because it really could happen. It drew elements from the society of the day and predicted some things that are going on to this day. Compare that to Divergent, where there are 5 factions that you pretty much have to join and fit completely into one category unless you’re Divergent. Most people in Veronica Roth’s world are not Divergent, which tells you how much she really knows about human nature. Continue reading
Eve by Anna Carey
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Sixteen years after a deadly virus wiped out most of Earth’s population, the world is a perilous place. Eighteen-year-old Eve has never been beyond the heavily guarded perimeter of her school, but the night before graduation, Eve learns the shocking truth about her school’s real purpose—and the horrifying fate that awaits her.
Fleeing the only home she’s ever known, Eve sets off on a long, treacherous journey, searching for a place she can survive. Along the way she encounters Caleb, a rough, rebellious boy living in the wild. Separated from men her whole life, Eve has been taught to fear them, but Caleb slowly wins her trust…and her heart. He promises to protect her, but when soldiers begin hunting them, Eve must choose between true love and her life.
I started reading Eve after I finished Kushiel’s Dart, which was around two in the morning. I intended just to read up to chapter 10, which would give me a good head start on tomorrow’s reading.
Yeah, right.
Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t stop reading Eve, something that’s extremely unusual in dystopic YA for me. That is how I came to read until four in the morning on Sunday. Staying up late to read on the weekend is not exactly unusual for me, but staying up late to read dystopic YA? That’s new. I have nothing against dystopian YA, but it like if you’ve read one book, you’ve read them all in terms of plot.
True, I could predict most plot twists in Eve. Really, it follows the basic plot arc of all dystopia, not just YA. Yet, somehow, Anna Carey managed to keep me in suspense, flipping pages furiously to find out what happened next. It may seem like a contradiction, but I did predict the basic plot of the story and find it suspenseful at the same time. Why? Because the characters intrigued me.
From the book’s blurb you get the impression that Eve and Caleb are your typical YA couple, but they’re not. Eve has led a very, very sheltered life and she has been conditioned not to trust men. They don’t fall in Insta-Love but you get the feeling that this is a typical first love with all those messy, intense emotions and all of the ups and downs of a rollercoaster.
The world-building is good, but it never crosses into the realm of “Wow! That was amazing!” The way the King of New America rose to power seems plausible, as do the labour camps for orphaned boys, but I would have liked more detail about the plague. What it was, how it started, etc. But that’s probably just me who likes the gory details, so I can’t really complain about that. I suspect it will be covered in more depth in the next two installments of the Eve Trilogy.
I give this book 3.5/5 stars.
The Bar Code Tattoo by Suzanne Weyn
(Cover picture courtesy of Random Buzzers.)
The bar code tattoo. Everybody’s getting it. It will make your life easier, they say. It will hook you in. It will become your identity.
But what if you say no? What if you don’t want to become a code? For Kayla, this one choice changes everything. She becomes an outcast in her high school. Dangerous things happen to her family. There’s no option but to run…for her life.
I’ve heard a lot of great and terrible things about this book in the YA community. Again, this prompts the question: Is it worth the hype?
Well, not really.
Much like Matched, it is an average book, but nothing more. It’s not fantastic and it’s not terrible, but it falls somewhere in between. An interesting dystopian society, a decently paced plot and an okay cast of characters…yet there is nothing really exceptional about The Bar Code Tattoo. Some aspects of it are Orwellian, others remind me of that documentary Food Inc. and still others remind me of The Giver. Suzanne Weyn is a competent enough writer, but she doesn’t really stand out for me.
The Bar Code Tattoo is set in a dystopian future where the fears of right-wringers, left-wingers and centrists come to pass. For the right, it is the scary amount of government overreach and a complete lack of respect for the Constitution. For the left, it is the fact that the poor are pretty much left to fend for themselves while corporations take over America. As for the centrists, all this will scare the crap out of them. This is why I admire Suzanne Weyn’s dystopia in an odd sort of way: it combines the fears of all political spectrums into one decently built future.
Kayla is a decent enough protagonist, but is nothing really special. To me she’s pretty much your stock dystopian protagonist: she sees nothing wrong with the society until something happens (like falling in love or someone close to her dying) to make her into a rebel. Highly predictable. The plot is decently paced, but I could predict every plot ‘twist’.
Overall: meh.
I give this book 3/5 stars.
The Giver by Lois Lowry
(Cover picture courtesy of Whatcha Readin’, Books?)
Jonas’s world is perfect. Everything is under control. There is no war or fear or pain. There are no choices. Every person is assigned a role in the Community.
When Jonas turns twelve, he is singled out to receive special training from The Giver. The Giver alone holds the memories of the true pain and pleasure of life. Now it’s time for Jonas to receive the truth.
Okay, start writing your hate mail. I’m about to criticize what many laud as a literary masterpiece above questioning.
Here we have yet another popular novel that we have to ask ourselves about: Is it really worth all of the hype? In a word, no, but it’s not as simple as that. One of the main things that’s made this book popular is the fact that it’s studied by middle school students. In fact, I studied this book in grade 9 and having read it in grade 6, was incredibly bored. I remember telling my teacher that this wasn’t really a grade-appropriate novel, but it’s actually in the grade 9 curriculum in Saskatchewan, if you can believe it. Reading it years later, I thought I might get something new out of it, but I think I got the message the first time around.
My overall impression of The Giver is that it’s good, but it’s not the greatest thing since paper that educators seem to praise it as. It does have meaning and wonderful messages that make readers debate comfort versus freedom, but it feels as if Lois Lowry was trying too hard to make sure readers got this message. The phrase beat-you-over-the-head-with-a-stick-obvious comes to mind, which was even my impression when I first read the novel. The Giver was somewhat unique in its own time, but now with the explosion of YA dystopia, it is one novel among many that does not even stand out particularly well.
The main character Jonas is good, but he is not memorable. He rebels against the society and sees what’s wrong with it, but only after The Giver shows him quite a few memories of the freedom of the past. Before then, he’s hasn’t really questioned the society, which makes the novel start off fairly slow, but as Jonas acquires more memories, he does change for the better. He becomes angry and frustrated with his society, pining for freedoms he never knew he wanted. While Jonas has a lot of depth, but since emphasis is placed on controlling emotion, we don’t feel his emotions as well as we should.
The world of The Giver is well built, but it is nothing exceptional. What is interesting is the sheer amount of control the leaders have over the Community, which hammers home the “complete comfort at the price of freedom” message. One of the things that bugged me the most was that although this is classified as science fiction, we never really learn about how The Giver passes the memories of the past on to Jonas. There is no technology involved and it is only hinted at that The Giver and Jonas are special because they can See or Hear Beyond.
So in conclusion, The Giver actually is a good novel and a decent read, but it really felt like Lois Lowry was trying too hard to hammer the message home. Generations of kids have grown to dislike this book because teachers try to over-analyze the novel as well and I honestly can’t blame them.
I give this book 4/5 stars.