Book Thoughts: The Handmaid's Tale

Title: The Handmaid's Tale
Author: Margaret Atwood

Holy cow. This book is so good, but so creepy. I felt things I have never felt before. The story was so engaging and I am just in love with the way this story was told. Also, wow, the feminist in me is just raring to go after this one, but so is the voice of conservatism: 'hold your horses, nothing too crazy now, y'hear?' Stylistically, The Handmaid's Tale is simply beautiful, and in terms of the story... let's just say this: I read it for class, and I was really really bad at not reading ahead. Also also, I simultaneously loved and hated the ending. I don't want to say anything else because of spoilers, but when you read this one (and I say when, not if, because you really ought to read it), do make sure you read the "historical notes" at the end.

And if you want to have a chat after you read it, hit me up. Because I could talk about this for ages.

(P.S. I wrote this back in April when I finished reading the book for class, but it's not from tumblr or an old blog or anything really and I loved it so I'm putting it in with new stuff.)

Book Thoughts: Legend

Title: Legend
Author: Marie Lu
Series: Legend #1

I think I could read about Day and June forever. Very rarely can authors write a novel from two alternating first-person perspectives and actually sound like it’s two different people telling the story, but Marie Lu pulls it off brilliantly. Day and June are so different from each other but so strikingly similar, and they just sucked me in and I want to know what happens to them and ahhh I can’t wait for the third book. Okay moving on.

I loved the world-building in this. I was super confused at first as to exactly where the Republic and the Colonies were, but I always knew as much as I needed to in order to follow the story, and you only discover it slowly because it means nothing to Day and June — which only makes the dystopia that more chilling, but I’ll spare you my ramble about that. I loved (in a purely literary sense) the way the Republic was structured, I loved the way the characters interacted with the Republic, and I found myself far more emotionally invested than I ever meant to be.

I read — or maybe the better word is “devoured” — this one and the sequel, Prodigy, back to back over the span of three days, so I am super excited for the release of Champion. If you haven’t gotten your hands on this series yet, what are you still waiting for?! 

Book Thoughts: Across the Universe

Title: Across the Universe

Author: Beth Revis

Series: Across the Universe #1
*Imported from tumblr*

Okay so let’s talk about Across the Universe by Beth Revis. I’ve had this one sitting on my bookshelf for a couple of years now and just never got around to actually reading it until this week — and now I’m kicking myself for waiting so long.

It’s basically an intergalactic, high-technology dystopian murder mystery. Sort of. Amy, along with her parents and several others, has been cryogenically frozen and is to be one of the new inhabitants of “Centauri-Earth," a distant planet that should take 300 years to reach. But she is woken 50 years before the ship Godspeed reaches Centauri-Earth, almost the victim of a murder. Working with the ship’s future leader, Elder, she must try to find the killer before he kills again.

So yeah, it’s a murder mystery set on a spaceship several hundred years in the future. And there is some seriously great discussion of the nature of dystopias, the meaning of family, what it takes to be a true leader, all kinds of stuff. It’s excellent. I’m kind of mad at myself for not reading this sooner. The plus side? The sequels are already out, so I don’t have to wait for them.

(Also, a side note! I got the chance to meet Beth at a signing and she is SUPER NICE and also a fan of Doctor Who, Sherlock, and Firefly like me! So that was super cool.)

Book Thoughts: Crewel

Title: Crewel
Author: Gennifer Albin
Series: Crewel World #1

Adelice has spent her whole life training to hide her talent from the Guild, but they come for her anyway. She is to be a Spinster: someone who can weave the strands of time and space to regulate the entire world. But Adelice has an even deeper secret, and the Guild will do anything they can to make sure Adelice uses it for their will -- something she will do anything to stop.

This is seriously one of the coolest fictional worlds I've ever encountered. I'm a huge geek about world-building, and so this was like a gift from the story gods, because world-building is tied up in the plot. And as a lover of dystopian fiction as well, this was doubly right up my alley. Plus, feminism!

If I have to compare this to something else, I'd say it's The Handmaid's Tale meets The Matrix and the star is a female computer programmer. There's a bit of a love triangle that felt really unnecessary, but that was really the only weak point in the book for me. I love the characters, I LOVE the world and the premise, and I cannot wait to learn more about Arras when the second book is released.

Book Thoughts: Eve

Title: Eve
Author: Anna Carey
Series: Eve #1

Eve is the valedictorian of her class and a golden girl of the post-plague society -- that is, until she finds out what awaits her and her classmates upon graduation. The night before her graduation, Eve escapes from School and strikes out on her own into the dangerous world of soldiers, wild animals, and worst of all: men. But the outside world and the people it holds may not be the terrible evil she's always been taught...

I was initially reminded of The Handmaid's Tale when I read this, except these girls have no "before" to compare their life to. Carey has created a terrifying dystopia that does not shy away from the hard truths of a forager's life but also embraces the chance for hope in even the darkest situations. I think it was the protagonist that really won this one for me, though. Eve has a lot of book smarts and not so much in the way of common sense -- but she has a fierce faith in human goodness and an overpowering determination to take care of others, and as much as those traits may hurt her, they just might be enough to get her through.

Recommended for fans of dystopia, feminism, cute love stories, and fun YA books.

Book Thoughts: What's Left of Me

Title: What's Left of Me
Author: Kat Zhang
Series: Hybrid Chronicles #1
*Imported from tumblr*

Um, wow. This is such a cool idea.

Every body is born with two souls. By the time they’re in first grade, one of them -- the “recessive" soul -- has faded. Or at least, that’s how it’s supposed to be, but Eva never faded. Doctors have tried and tried to take her away and leave Addie in sole possession of their body, and they mostly have. Addie controls the body's physical movements, but Eva is still there, an observer trapped at her twin soul's mercy. But when she finds out she might be able to move again… Eva will do anything.

I loved the way this world was built. I am just fascinated by this concept and I think Kat Zhang does an awesome job of pulling it off. I thought the writing was brilliant and the characters were wonderful and I can't gush enough about how much I enjoyed it. What's Left of Me is a complete story in itself but also sets up the rest of the series (trilogy? I don’t know) well. I devoured it - read it in one sitting, with one break to eat dinner. If you’re a fan of scifi or if you’ve ever just felt invisible, definitely check this one out.

Book Thoughts: Under the Never Sky

Title: Under the Never Sky
Author: Veronica Rossi
Series: Under the Never Sky #1

I finished this earlier today, and I wish I didn't have to wait all the way until January for the sequel. So good!

Aria has lived in the Pod known as Reverie her whole life. She has been sheltered from the outside world, existing in a place where disease has been eradicated and almost all interaction occurs in a virtual world rather than the real world. Perry's life has been the opposite. He grew up hunting and struggling to survive, dodging storms that lashed out from the Aether in the sky and knowing how dangerous life could be. When Aria is exiled from Reverie, she and Perry will need to rely on each other in order to save them both.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I loved the characters, I loved the setting - the idea of the Aether and the Pods is really cool. I kept reading because I needed to know what would happen next. I also really loved how distinct Aria and Perry's voices were. Even though none of the book was in first person, the focal character of each chapter was always clear just through the narrative voice. I love that.

Also: it wasn't love at first sight yay! Aria and Perry have to work at it and learn to trust each other, and the progression of their relationship from enemies to friends to something more was really well done.

Basically I just really thoroughly enjoyed this book and I cannot wait to read the sequel. Definitely read it!

Book Thoughts: Bumped

Title: Bumped
Author: Megan McCafferty
Series: Bumped #1

I just recently finished this book and I went into it having read a number of mixed reviews. People either loved it because it was an excellent social commentary or hated it because the slang was over the top and the science didn't make any sense. I fell in with the first group, despite thinking after the first chapter that I would be in the second group.

Bumped is set in a future world where a virus has made most people over the age of 18 or so infertile, so teenage girls are paid to get pregnant and have deliveries (can't call them babies, that would imply emotional attachment) for wealthy couples who can't have their own children. Melody's adoptive parents know she's gorgeous, smart, and talented and have set her on the path to being a RePro (reproductive professional). Harmony, Melody's identical twin sister, was adopted by the church. She finds the whole "pregging" culture unthinkable.

In a lot of ways, the premise of the novel was over-the-top. The first chapter made me almost not want to finish the book. But I kept going and I ended up really engaged in the characters and the way they felt about their environments. There really is a fascinating commentary on the way we oversexualize women, both in the secular and religious worlds. Also, some of the marketing stuff hits a little too close to home.

Short version: I didn't expect to like this book, but I ended up thoroughly enjoying it and am definitely planning to look for the sequel.

Book Thoughts: Birthmarked

Title: Birthmarked
Author: Caragh M. O'Brien
Series: Birthmarked #1

Birthmarked took me a while to get into it and at first I was afraid I wasn't going to like it. I really wanted to like it, because it came really highly recommended by some of my best friends, but it was just really slow getting started. Of course, that might have been because it took me ages to read any of it thanks to school, but it just felt painfully slow.

Fortunately, it got better. Much better. By the time I got to the end, I was completely ignoring everything around me so that I could keep turning pages. I wanted to know what happened. The characters were only part of it - I liked Gaia, but she was kind of slow sometimes; my favorite was definitely Leon - and the plot was well-crafted but it's hard to get a whole lot of variation in dystopian fiction; it's always someone fighting the system. I think what made this book for me was the world that Caragh O'Brien created.

Those who live inside the wall are privileged and have everything they need. Those who are born outside the wall, are born healthy, and are one of the midwife's first three babies of the month can be advanced - taken inside the wall, to be adopted and raised as an Enclave child. Those like Gaia, who are scarred or imperfect or simply unlucky, live outside the wall - a much harder, less privileged life. Gaia is training to be a midwife like her mother, and has learned all of her mother's traditions and practices. So when her parents get arrested, Gaia is asked to unravel the coded birth record that her mother left behind.

I really loved the set-up with the code (which I solved before Gaia did! At least partially...I was excited) and the DNA testing and everything. Birthmarked was not my favorite book ever or anything, but I definitely enjoyed it once I got into it. I was afraid there wasn't going to be a sequel, because the ending could go either way (I don't think that's too spoilery), but fortunately the author's website says that it's going to be a trilogy. I'll certainly be looking for book two once it comes out!

Book Thoughts: The Maze Runner

Title: The Maze Runner
Author: James Dashner
Series: Maze Runner #1

When Thomas wakes up in the lift and finds himself in a strange place called the Glade, he has no idea what to expect, mostly because he knows nothing about himself - not his name, not who his parents are, not his birthday, nothing. The other boys quickly inform him that one new boy arrives every thirty days, that he will have to work but should be safe, and that he must never, ever enter the Maze. There's one problem with that: Thomas feels drawn to the Maze, and knows right away that he is meant to be a Runner - one of the Gladers who enter the Maze every day, trying to map it out and find some sort of pattern, some sort of escape.

It took me a while to get into this book, although part of that was probably because I have had so much going on with school and college applications and my thesis project that I haven't had much time for reading. Once I did get into it, though, I loved this book. So much. The premise is just fascinating - an unsolvable maze, a mystery girl, a conspicuous lack of memories...plus the plot is not totally focused on romance. AND I didn't completely figure out what was going to happen before the end! Bits and pieces of it, maybe, but I was still totally taken aback by a lot of what happened, which I love.

And Thomas is a great character. I don't find a whole lot of male protagonists that I actually like in YA, so that's cool, but even if male protagonists were the most common thing ever, Thomas is awesome. And I love the other characters as well - mystery girl (whose name I'll not tell you, since you don't find out until probably almost halfway through the book) totally kicks butt, and Chuck and Newt and Minho are all awesome too.

There is so much to love about this book. Thomas, the plot, just the whole thing. The beginning's a little slow, but do not give up! The Maze Runner will totally rock your socks off. Because it's awesome like that.

Book Thoughts: Matched

Title: Matched
Author: Ally Condie
Series: Matched #1

I don't even know where to start. Matched was such an utterly amazing book that I really have no idea where to begin. So I suppose I'll begin by saying that I absolutely adore this cover. It is so gorgeous. Also, it shimmers. Love love love.

And the story! It's set up within a typical dystopian frame - "perfect" society, someone rebels. (I'm totally not trashing this frame, by the way - it's just part of the genre.) But it feels like it has so much more to it than that! The Society is so intricate, so well-developed. It just kind of makes you shiver with how these are all realistic people acting so...machine, but still with their human characteristics. I'll stop now before I go off into my whole spiel about how much I love dystopian fiction, but suffice it to say that the Society in Matched is one of the best.

The background is perfect: just add characters. Honestly, I feel like the characters could have been boring as all get-out and the book would still have been semi-readable because the backdrop is so good, but Ally Condie did so much better. Cassia is one of the most real protagonists I've encountered, especially with this kind of set-up. And Xander and Ky....oh, man. I love Xander and all, but Ky is so....ahh. I would not want to have to choose. Poor Cassia.

Okay, I recognize that I'm rambling. I shall attempt to stop that. Basically, Cassia gets Matched to Xander, so the two of them will be married...but then, for just a moment, Cassia sees Ky's face on her Matching screen. Cue forbidden love and all sorts of intrigue.

The plot sounds kind of basic, but the execution...I could read pages and pages of absolute nothing, as long as it was written as beautifully as this book. I love love love Ally Condie's writing. And when paired with an awesome dystopian society (er, Society) and some amaaazing characters...well, you're in for a novel you don't want to miss. My only complaint was that I wanted to see more development of the minor characters, but really, I felt like even they were well-rounded.

Long story short, I love this book. Definitely, definitely read it.

Book Thoughts: The Unidentified

Title: The Unidentified
Author: Rae Mariz

I think the thing that hit me hardest about this book is that it's totally plausible. Maybe not in the immediate future, but the technology of the Game is fast approaching and education spending is decreasing and corporations are on the rise... is it really so ridiculous to imagine a world where "school" is a blend of technology, video games, and marketing?

Before I get too rambly, let me start at the beginning. Katey, known to her friends as "Kid," is basically the epitome of mediocrity in the Game. She has decent scores, "riding high on the bell curve" as her advisor puts it, a few friends... she's not on the It List (which is an actual list in the Game), she's not a social pariah, she's just...average. And she's happy that way, mostly. And then an anti-corporate prank rattles her world. She's the only one who seems to care - and that attracts attention. Suddenly corporations want her, her friends don't understand her sudden popularity, she maybe has a boyfriend -- and the anonymous group responsible for the prank knows she knows about them. Cue mystery and hidden agendas.

It took me a while to get into The Unidentified for a couple of reasons. First, the set-up was kind of confusing; I didn't really understand the Game for the first several chapters. Second, the slang was not what I was used to; Kid and Mikey and Ari were using words that I didn't know. It took some getting used to. But once I got into it...wow. I couldn't put it down.

I love that The Unidentified challenges us to think. To think about popularity, and fashion, and corporate America, and what it means to have an identity. The ideas that this book tackles are so big and so real that it's impossible to read it without fully engaging your brain - and that's a good thing. But at the same time, it's a very basic look at friendship and humanity that is just as applicable now as in the technology-dominated society Kid lives in.

It's a bit confusing at times, but I think The Unidentified is definitely worth your time.

Book Thoughts: Delirium

Title: Delirium
Author: Lauren Oliver
Series: Delirium #1

This book. Oh my goodness. Once I started, I couldn't stop reading. I loved it. I really, really did.

In a lot of ways, Delirium is what you'd expect from a dystopian novel. I feel like if Matched and Birthmarked had a child, it would almost-not-quite be this. But I don't mean that in a bad way -- there are certain things that all dystopians have, just as trademarks of the genre, and for what it's worth, I thought Delirium did it very well. Despite the fact that it reminded me of both of those other novels, it is definitely a story all its own.

Lena is seventeen. In ninety-five days, when she turns eighteen, she will get the cure -- the cure for the amor deliria nervosa. Love, the disease that kills you when you have it and when you don't. But then she meets Alex, and everything changes. She's been infected, badly infected, but she's happy that way.

I loved the characters. Lena, Alex, Hana... I want to be their friend. I loved the little things that made them human. Yes, Lena is scared of rebelling. Her fear makes her real, and her courage makes her a heroine worth reading about. I love the development of the relationship between Lena and Alex. I love the friendship dynamic between Lena and Hana. I loved the history, too. The clips from The Book of Shhh at every chapter, the story of how society came to be the way it is, and the personal history, too -- the story of Lena's family. So much awesome packed into 440 pages.

The story kept me turning pages to see what would happen next. And by the end, I knew what was going to happen -- I had figured it out, but I had to keep turning pages because I had to know for sure if I was right. Obviously I'm not going to tell you what that ending was, because that would be terribly spoilery of me, but I will say that I was right. But the fact that I could figure out the end, that it wasn't entirely unpredictable, didn't lessen the story at all. In fact, I think maybe the [insert non-spoilery word here, because all the ones I can think of are spoilery] of the ending just made me love it even more.

I'm going to stop talking now, because I feel like I'm going to say something spoilery by accident if I don't. So I will leave you with three things: 1. Delirium made me go read some poetry. (I love when books give me good poetry to look up.) 2. I want Pandemonium nowww.... And 3. Go read this book right now. Please and thank you. :)