Book:   

Author:                Lauren DeStefano

Publisher:           Simon & Schuster

ISBN/ASIN:         9781442409057

Rating:                  3.5 Stars

Release Date:    March 22, 2011

Pop by Lauren’s page here. Read the excerpt.

Lauren DeStefano’s latest young adult dystopian novel due out in March of 2011 is testament to a world gone wrong -science has wreaked havoc on the genetic code, war has broken out and decimated much of the known world, the polar ice caps have melted, and the center of the known world is now the United States…or at least what is left of it.

Now men only live until 25 and women to age 20. In order to perpetuate the species until a cure can be found, a sinister practice has surfaced. Girls are being kidnapped by Gatherers and delivered to either brothels or rich families and bonded into marriage with their prospective husbands and sister wives.  The aging First Generation is hopelessly trying for a cure, but with the growing divide between pro-naturalists and the scientists, a cure is too far out of hand.

At first glance, I wondered is DeStefano’s world enough to draw in readers? Wither’s theme is off-putting…where girls…some very young, are thrust into the role of wife and mother, clinging to each other for support and guidance. It is a theme all too common in this day and age-and at every remote corner of the globe, and Wither brings it home to readers-riding a fine line between adult and YA fiction.

DeStefano plays this hand heavily in her characters: Rhine Ellery the lead in Wither whose unusual genetic makeup and beauty has targeted her for a House Governor’s mansion after being stolen away from her home and her brother Rowan. There is Cecily who grew up in a government orphanage desperate to escape-even if her route is as a child bride, and Jenna who has done whatever she could to escape the mean streets to survive. Each has a different background but a similar fate…

Much in the same vein as The Handmaid’s Tale, Wither delivers a similar theme, but there is too little to draw in readers, sparse relief, and hope seems in short supply. The draw between Rhine and Gabriel, her attendant provides a brief respite, and sometimes the uneasy truce between Linden (Rhine’s new husband).  But overall, DeStefano seems uncertain on how to weave the uneasiness between Rhine and Linden. Does she fall for him, her captor? Does she hate him even though he does not know the truth about her abduction? Why doesn’t Rhine tell him the truth? About the true reality of “outside” and how she, Cecily and Jenna were abducted for his benefits? Everywhere is the spectre of Vaughn, Linden’s frightening father who controls every aspect of the estate and those who are held prisoner there.

Wither is darkly haunting, uncomfortable, and well written. And DeStefano’s story world-building is superficial, not fully explained. But it is not the theme that turned me from DeStefano’s story. True, it is a troubling subject, but the vital component missing was hope. That necessary ingredient has to be present to save the reader from its depressing theme. Without this relief, Wither can be a dark, brooding morass emanating a poignant feeling of being trapped in a gilded cage.

Part of the 2011 Book Chick City Horror and Urban Fantasy Challenge (yes I know this is a dystopian novel...:)

 A Fiendishly Bookish Review (and one grumpy cat)

Book:

Author:                   Suzanne Collins

Publisher:               Scholastic Press

ISBN/ASIN:              0439023513

Release Date:        Out now!!

Rating:                    4 Stars

Collins has detoured straight into full-scale revolution with Mockingjay-the final chapter of The Hunger Games series. And the plight of Panem, Katniss Everdeen, District 12 and her band of Hunger Games victors has been thrown to the wind as conflict shadows their every move, rarely letting readers up for air.  

In these moments we are pensive, forever guessing at the direction that Collins is taking us. Never do we dare think that the road that we've been diverted to is one that will only end with very real casualties-and this is where Mockingjay morphs from a YA dystopian novel into something more perilous.

Through each page turn, I kept remembering the poem Plato Told by ee cummings, that particular poem reverberating through my head endlessly as well as the lyrics of “Strange Fruit”. Those cautionary, but powerful words portend the tone of this final chapter in Katniss Everdeen’s life. It is as if Mockingjay was the proverbial wolf in sheeps clothing: a raw and harrowing amalgam of world history. Our own.  Like Peacekeeper: Road to Sarajevo cloaked as a young adult novel with a subliminal message to its readers. 

For fans of The Hunger Games, Collin’s overtly somber tone and stoic ending might derail them, unwilling to follow the long road of a once entertaining but serious tale into a world where hope is diminished and not without very real sacrifice. Will readers follow? Most likely yes, but unwillingly. 

Mockingjays’ grave finale works against everything Collins started with her series, and sometimes it leaves bitter ashes in the mouth. Palpably the conflict churns between Peeta, Haymitch, Gale, the rebels, and the ongoing inner turmoil that Katniss feels. There are glimmers of hope of love, however fleeting and yes there is the satisfying conclusion with Peeta and Katniss at the very end. But at what price? 

Mockingjay cannot be denied as a powerful piece, and thoroughly engrossing, but it is a Crazy Ivan nonetheless. Gone is the enigmatic rebel, the leader who launched a revolution and in its place is shadow of her former self. It is clear that Collins is imparting a lesson to her readers and at times it devolves from a thrilling story to cautionary tale.

The best that can be described for this much-heralded conclusion is that it is a pyrrhic victory of sorts.

 A Fiendishly Bookish Review (and one grumpy cat)

Book:                Grace

Author:             Elizabeth Scott

Publisher:         Dutton|Penguin

ISBN/ASIN:       9780525422068

Release Date:    September 16, 2010

Rating:   3.75 Stars

Buy: | Amazon | B&N | Borders | Powell’s | Indiebound |

Find out more about Elizabeth Scott.

Grace is unsettling in its depiction of a futuristic totalitarian government-its people managed by a maniacal puppeteer. The unsettling part is though Elizabeth Scott places her story in the near future it more uncannily resembles present day-and with it, all the raw intensity of nitro glycerin.

 Spartan in its description-spare and hollow, and forcing the reader to hunt for the plot, Grace is the tale of a young girl destined to be a tool for The People and their insurgent group, the Rories. Not her people. As an outcast and even ostracized by her own family, Grace is destined to be an Angel-a suicide bomber. Reluctantly.

After botching her suicide mission, Grace finds herself on a ramshackle train loaded with Keran Berj’s soldiers on a treacherous journey. The only thing in front of her is the warped train track through a scorching desert, and the stranger she travels with to an uncertain future-and the possibility of being caught and subject to a hideous public execution.

As the fist of dictator Keran Berj slowly chokes the life of his constituents, he forces them to walk a high wire of impossible tasks that change daily-for his amusement. This season the law is that women should cut their hair. Last season they were to have it long. He has outlawed the press. No one is allowed to gesture with their left hand. Eyes furtively watching everything. There is no place to hide.

Grace is so full of despair, resembling a flickering light that is close to going out. The only redeeming factor is Scott has managed to inject hope at the bitter end and through the commiseration between Grace and Jerusha. Her words though sparse, pack a powerful punch-Grace is indeed a moving story, uncomfortably so…but devoid of all the traits that would enable a reader to relate to its lead. What would draw us to Grace? Is it her reluctance to live a life that was planned out for her? Or is it her apathy at botching her mission, but still taking out a few citizens? Or is it her festering question that there is more out there, underneath the layers of programming, there is something that is infinitely her?

Whatever it is that draws us to Grace she will not likely be forgotten.

A Fiendishly Bookish Review (and one grumpy cat). 

Book:

Author:             Ally Condie

Publisher:        Dutton Books/Penguin

ISBN/ASIN:      9780525423645 (arc)

Rating:             4.5 Stars

Release Date:  Nov 20, 2010

Buy: | Amazon | B&N | Borders | Indiebound | 

Check out Ally’s blog.  and webpage 

Discover more about Dylan Thomas, Tennyson and Thoreau amazing visionaries whose themes are explored in Matched.

In the not too distant future, in the Province of Oria, every aspect of your life will be controlled-and you will like it. How would you ever know that things were not as they seemed? How would you fight back? Could you? And when it came time for Society officials tell you to shake the red pill out of your container and take it-would you? 

Will you go gently into that good night? 

Ally Condie’s jewel, “Matched” immerses you in the world of Cassia Reyes so much so, that you are swathed in the beauty and serenity of her world. Condie captures you and holds you prisoner in her story-you are elated and surprised when Cassia is matched to her logical choice at her Matching Banquet. Also, it looks as if she will be given a great assignment after Second School. Cassia’s future seems set. She’s followed the rules. She’s been a model Society citizen. Everything seems to have fallen into place. After all, isn’t that how the Society has planned it?

But when Cassia gets a moment to read her matching microcard-that will outline the Matching Guidelines, that will tell her all about her new love, and future husband, someone else’s face pops up. And it’s someone she recognizes. 

Has the Society made a mistake? 

That one mishap leads Cassia on bittersweet journey that will take an inordinate amount of courage, awareness, newfound hope, and inner rage, to propel her into a destiny of her own choosing-one that will dangerously deviate from the cloistered protection of the Society, making her a potential enemy of the state.

Matched is lethal in its simplicity. Its narrative is carefully cloaked in subtlety that portends a sinister and chilling dystopian future-with Ally Condie as its oracle. It is a stunning story that will both mesmerize and haunt you.

In many ways, the love triangle between Cassia, Ky and Xander takes a back seat in lieu of the overwhelming insidiousness of Condie’s totalitarian vision-its subversive tentacles into the minds, hearts and lives of the Society’s citizens chills me to the bone. This suspenseful fear lingers on throughout the books- causing you to question everything you know. It is an excercise in civil disobedience, dystopian style with an ardent love story at its center.

Condie’s words summon up an equal measure of bittersweet love and anger. You will feel both, and will not be likely to forget it. Ever. Matched was powerful-and stunning. Simply stunning.

See what The Compulsive Reader has to say about Matched.

See what Robison Wells has to say about Matched.

See what The Cozy Reader has to say about Matched.

 A Fiendishly Bookish Review (and one grumpy cat)

Book:

Author:                       Lesley Hauge

Publisher:                   Henry Holt (Macmillan)

ISBN/ASIN:               9780805090642

Rating:                        Four Stars

Release Date:               June 22, 2010

Buy:    | Amazon | B&N | Borders | Powell’s | Indiebound | 

Read an Excerpt

In Nomansland Lesley Hauge explores what it is like to be a young woman in an uncertain dystopian future, devoid of warmth, personal expression, and friendship. For Keller, a Tracker in her small isolated women’s only community, life has been nothing but Foundland and its harsh principals. At an early age the girls are taught to shun tears, decoration, vanity, and most of all friendship. Men are the enemy and the isolation of Foundland must be maintained at all costs.

But Keller doesn’t always see the world through the eyes of Foundland. There are clues, remnants of the past, from the Time Before that trouble her. Even more so, these relics portray women in another role entirety. When she and a group of her fellow Trackers stumble upon a house from the Time Before, they unearth a time capsule from an age where women existed freely. As they grapple with their discovery, Keller realizes that these artifacts have the power to undermine the community of Foundland and challenge everything she and her fellow sisters believe in. 

Hauge has managed to juxtapose feminism with a dystopian theme that will force readers to question exactly what is femininity. Is it the rejection of everything that is soft and embracing strength? Without softness, are women still women? Female? What differentiates them from men in Hauge’s cautionary tale? In Nomansland, the rejection of the feminine is taken to the extreme and Keller continually struggles with her own internal battles of what she is-with an identity that has been stripped and supplanted by a totalitarian system. I found Nomansland invigorating and startling to dive into and it fired up themes that readers will muse over long after the book has finished. Leaving readers on a sort of cliffhanger at the end, I am anxious to learn more of Keller’s new journey into the unknown… 

A Fiendishly Bookish Review (and one grumpy cat)

Book:              Restoring Harmony     

Author:            Joelle Anthony          

Publisher:       G.P.Putnam/Penguin    

ISBN/ASIN:     9780399252815         

Rating:            4.5 Stars   

Buy:    | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Borders | 

Watch the Book Trailer

The stranglehold of government is a strong but familiar theme in Joelle Anthony’s debut read Restoring Harmony, a young adult tale that is set in the near future after a global economic collapse thrusts the world back to its primitive roots. When the last drops of oil are seized by competing governments and hoarded, there is not much left to fuel the world. This inevitably thrusts the planet into a global economic crisis and industry comes to a standstill. In the years following there is still no end in sight. Borders are closed, regular utilities like electricity and water are at a premium and out of reach. Everyday men and women scrabble to just survive, and barter is the commerce of the times.

Despite Anthony’s stark setting, it is thoughtfully contrasted by its humble protagonist, Molly McClure who gently pushes into the hearts of readers with her effervescent patience and ageless wisdom. When Molly’s parents arrange for her to illegally slip into the U.S. to bring back her grandparents she finds that her carefully planned journey goes awry. Another world exists outside her safe farming community, that she never knew of- where people prey on one another. Each step of the journey is filled with its share of obstacles and the help of a mysterious boy, Spill ends up changing her life. 

The budding attraction between Molly and the Organization’s “go to” boy Spill, is tender and fun. Spill’s aunt runs the Organization so there isn’t a way out from his life of crime. But Being in Molly’s sphere has changed him remarkably, and at the back of his mind he realizes there is another way to live in their broken world. Seeing this transformation and the growing relationship between them is the highlight of Anthony’s tale. It shines a brilliant light on the possibilities. When in some cases, hope has been forgotten.

Restoring Harmony is a hidden gem wrapped up in a dystopian wrapper because of the themes that Anthony illuminates. Rather than dwell in the past over lost lives, lost materialistic goods, and the endless pursuit of well…labor for others, Anthony poses an alternative through Molly and her family. Embracing their sheltered lives in their Canadian farming community, Molly and her family have learned to rely on the land, their hard work to provide as well as maintain a close knit community. Things like music and conversation in an age where technology has become mainly obsolete now are valued. Anthony prompts us to question our hardwire…to question ourselves …as well as question what exactly are the meaningful things in life…

A Fiendishly Bookish Review

Book:

Author:            Kat Falls    

Publisher:       Scholastic        

ISBN/ASIN:    9780545178143         

Rating:            5 Stars (FB's Top Ten of 2010)

Buy:    | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Borders | Indiebound |

In Dark Life Kat Falls illuminates two disparate worlds existing in humanity’s future. One a lush, blue-hewn world where humans live in symbiotic harmony with nature under the sea. These intrepid pioneers of the deep emerge shortly after The Rising, led by the best scientists and engineers to colonize the last territory: the sea. The other, is populated by “topsiders” still clinging to the old ways and the last chunks of land not submerged by the oceans rising. Crammed in cities where space is a commodity, and subjugated under governmental emergency measures to keep the peace, competition for resources and viciousness rule. 

But living subsea has altered the children of Benthic Territory. Besides being hardy workers, and learning to farm the sea for plankton and kelp, they can pilot subs, jet fins, mantaboards, flareguns, and harpins. They have adapted to the serene and yet sometimes harsh conditions of the deep better than those that live “Above”. And in some, evolution has bestowed a Dark Gift upon them-an otherworldly trait better suited for the dark fathoms than the light of day.

For Ty Townson, the territory’s only teenager, and his sister Zoe, living subsea on the homestead with their family and friends is full of life and adventure. Kids in the territory grow up faster than topside, and when Gemma Straid an escapee from a Commonwealth orphanage careens into Ty on an abandoned sub, life takes an unexpected turn.  Hampered by her search for her lost brother who disappeared within the territory, and the threat of the vicious Seablite Gang, Ty learns to double-task and the adventure is a go from page one.

Dark Life is carefully and patiently thought out. Fall’s world-building has allowed for no margin of error. From the architecture and technology of the subsea homesteads, to the mentality of the Commonwealth, topsiders and the prospectors, it is all intensely believable. She’s thoughtfully plotted how a teenager like Ty would reflect being brought up entirely subsea, on the cusp of manhood with an amazing secret. Ty will end up having to make a life or death decision to protect his family, the homestead, and the future of Benthic Territory. But making that decision will alienate Gemma forever. Can he make that choice?

Dark Life is radiant, ingenious, and spontaneously fresh. I couldn’t help but be reminded by Star Wars, The Abyss, Seaquest, and that first Farstation episode of TNG, or the very first time I read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Dark Life is a top-notch adventure for all ages that has definitely made my top ten for 2010. I expect it will have a permanent spot there.

A Fiendishly Bookish Review 

 Book:              Birthmarked

Author:            Caragh M. O’Brien

Publisher:        Roaring Brook Press

ISBN/ASIN:      9781596435698

Rating:            Five Stars 

Buy:   | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Border’s | Indiebound |

Read an Excerpt

Caragh O’Brien explores the bonds of kinship in a deteriorating dystopian society that brings to a head many provocative themes, and forces us to ponder some difficult questions and even more troublesome answers. In Birthmarked, three hundred years into the future, humanity’s survival depends on diversity. But the citizens of Western Sector Three don’t know that. For countless years they have been sacrificing their select newborns to the Enclave for basic necessities, never to see them again. One girl will unravel the mystery and thrust these two societies into chaos.

Birthmarked was such a compelling read because it’s chock full of substance. O’Brien’s world is one of obedience. Where the technology, the advancements of a bygone era, hydroelectricity, computers, and the means to grow food are all controlled by the Enclave. Their rules are harsh and unforgiving to those that disobey them. Those outside the walls live a simple life, largely uneducated and supply…babies to the Enclave unknowing that genetic defects are so prevalent within the upper castes.

O’Brien does not purposely soften the tone of her story merely because it is young adults who are her audience. Rather the adversities that Gaia Stone goes through in Birthmarked, bonds the readers to her plight. When Gaia starts to unravel the mysteries that are left to her after her parents are jailed, she must confront the consequences of her actions. What ultimately happened to the babies that she and her mother “advanced”? What became of her two older brothers? What does Leon want with her? What is the significance of the tattooed “freckles” and worse, how will the Enclave use that knowledge especially as their situation worsens? She has the power to destroy or join together both societies…will she do it?

There is harsh death as well as the balm of new life within O’Brien’s world, which makes it realistic and meaningful. I have read plenty of YA dystopian novels but none of them can come close to the subtly expressive and thought-provoking themes that Birthmarked contained. I was enthralled from the first page, contemplative, and reveling throughout the entire story. It was simply an amazing debut read. Every reader will want to accompany this courageous heroine on the journey to discover exactly what she is capable of, unravel the mystery of the coded ribbon, and whether she can step unfettered into the future. I definitely want more and am anxious to find out what happens in the next book!

A Fiendishly Bookish Review

Book:        The Clone Codes

Author:      The McKissacks

Publisher:  Scholastic

ISBN:         9780439929837

Buy:  | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Borders | Indiebound |

Rating:      Three Stars

The Clone Codes is a children's futuristic sci-fi novel about Earth in the year 2170 on the cusp of intergalactic travel. But pushing into the vacuum of space does not always mean a society is advanced, or has paid its dues with regard to science, ethics, and technology. Gross segregation occurs worldwide as clones are used in schools, homes, and businesses. Little more than slaves, genetically altered and chipped to be easily controlled, clones are the center of a glaring slaveocracy, a dark mark on humanity. 

The McKissacks want to focus on the plight of clones, the fight for sentience, the exploration into what is human and "real" as well as intermesh critical historical references and personages. But the overall feel of the book seems more like a class history lesson than the tangible conflict that one would expect when dealing with these issues.

As a teenage girl whose mother was just arrested for seditious and treasonous activities and exploring her own genetic roots, Leanna Deberry is strangely benign when she discovers the unfathomable. When dealing with issues of sentience, one would think that Leanna would run the gamut of emotion. A wide emotional spectrum is expected because well..the issue is LARGE when dealing with what makes a human...Human. Philosophers have agonized about this for countless centuries...Descartes in particular. This theme has also played out in so many sci-fi novels that I cannot even list them here, but the ones at the top of my list are Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Asimov's I, Robot.

Taking into consideration the intended audience, middle-schoolers will find The Clone Codes an interesting and fast read that will fire up their creative neurons, but anyone older, even tweens might recognize it for the light fare it is. Overall, I did enjoy the book, the setting, the colloquialisms, the descriptions of technology, and the pace were all very engaging but missing that elemental emotional component. Remember...Watership Down might have been a children's book, but within its pages were tangible bittersweet emotion and compassion that endeared it to readers for generations.

A Fiendishly Bookish Review

Book:       Girl in the Arena

Author:     Lise Haines

ISBN:        1599903725

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Rating:      Four Stars

Finding Girl in the Arena is akin to uncovering a vintage Chanel in a rummage bin at Les Puces. Fresh new ideas have been mined by Haines and twisted just so to give us a compulsive read about Lyn, the teenaged daughter of seven gladiator fathers who have fallen in the arena.

In Haines' world gladiatorial games rule the lives of populace. Everywhere. All over the globe. The rules of the game, like Roman law are set into stone. Colleges and training universities teach it. Gladiatorial families breathe it. It is its own religion for the masses: blood sport. In every technological medium, in the very near future, plebeians and citizens alike are glued to the epic and bloody battles.

Haines takes that twist and shanks the knife in deeper. She dwells on the power of the GSA (Gladiator Sports Association), the many-headed hydra who controls the sport world-wide, and its direct influence on Lyn and her family. And the only way that her family will be free of the GSA is for Lyn to take measures to free herself of their control.

What is so distinctive about Girl in the Arena is that Haine's manages to converge modernity with an edgy alternate reality quite well and in terms we understand. It's engaging, and absorbing and readers will like a strong heroine who will take charge of her life and fight for her family. The plot is definitely interesting, and the back-story was well-done.

But what I had expected when initially reading this book was that with such a buildup and the obvious title alludes that Lyn is an actual competing gladiator, and that is simply not the case. We do finally get to see Lyn in the grand finale going head to head with Uber in the arena but we have to wait for it. Overall, Girl in the Arena was a distinctive read for me, a nice change from the saturated plot lines out there (vampires and more vampires).

A Fiendishly Bookish Review