atlantia

atlantia
ally condie
ya/dystopian
dutton books
published 2013

For as long as she can remember, Rio has dreamt of the sand and sky Above - of life beyond her underwater city of Atlantia.  But in a single moment, all her plans for the future are thwarted when her twin sister, Bay, makes an unexpected decision, stranding Rio Below.  Alone, ripped away from the last person who knew Rio's true self - and the powerful siren voice she has long hidden - she has nothing left to lose.

Guided by a dangerous and unlikely mentor, Rio formulates a plan that leads to increasingly treacherous questions about her mother's death, her own destiny, and the complex system constructed to govern the divide between land and sea.  Her life and her city depend on Rio to listen to the voices of the past and speak long-hidden truths.

It's been a couple of days since I finished this book and I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

Rio and Bay live in Atlantia, an underwater city that was created back when the air on Earth was becoming so polluted people were dying from it.  Atlantia depends on the people Above to provide them with food and other necessities they cannot provide for themselves down Below.  Every year teenagers can volunteer to go Above and leave Below forever.  It is considered a great sacrifice and only one person from each family can go.  After Bay chooses Above after making Rio promise to stay Below (basically tricking Rio) Rio cannot do anything but find a way to get Above to her sister.  Along the way she's confronted with truths she never asked for.  Does it change how she feels about getting to the Above?

I feel like maybe every conflict could have been solved had there been better communication.  Simple as that.  So many unnecessary secrets and no one trusts anyone.  It was a slow, slow read.  It took so long to get to the actual plot that there were several times I just simply lost interest.  There were too many questions.  What was happening to Atlantia? What is Above?  Why did Bay leave Below when she loved it so much?  What's Rio's secret?  Who is the boy who left with Bay?  What really happened to their mother?  What happened between their mother and her sister?  Can Maire be trusted?

There were so many questions and when you finally get answers it's kind of quick and then she moves on because there is so much going on.  And then it just kind of wraps up and there are still a few loose ends.  It was quite unsatisfying.

The world of Atlantia was fascinating and the scope of the project, how far reaching it was....that was interesting, but we never really get much info on that except that they no long exist.  I'm glad this is a stand alone novel because I'm not sure I feel invested enough in the characters to read another book.

pure

pure
the pure trilogy #1
julianna baggott
ya/dystopia
grand central publishing
published 2012

We know you are here, our brothers and sisters....

Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before.  At an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and wear, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small.  Pressia is on the run.

Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash....

There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked.  Pures.  Partridge, a Pure, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely.He thinks about loss - maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter.  When a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her.

When Pressia meets Partridge, their worlds shatter all over again.

I can barely explain how much I loved this book. These are big bold words, but I think I loved this more than I did The Hunger Games or Divergent.  At times I put the book down to collect myself for a minute because something disturbed me so much.

Dusts, Groupies, The Meltlands, The Good Mother.  These things will haunt me.  Pressia, Partridge, Lyda, El Capitan, Bradwell.  These characters will stay with me always.

There were just so many holy shit moments, things I never saw coming.  I don't know if it was because I was so into the story that I didn't have time to look ahead or put the pieces together.  I didn't stop long enough to think about it.  I just read.

The story skips around to different points of view.  Usually this frustrates me because it feels sometimes difficult to follow, but I didn't seem to have a problem.  There were times when the story is being told from Partridges point of view, but would jump over to Bradwell for a minute and while that seemed weird I wasn't confused.

I don't know.  This was different.  My library actually has this in the adult fiction section instead of the YA section and while I don't think it's too mature for teens it was definitely disturbing.  For me, even more so when they got to the Meltlands.  When I finally got a grasp on what had happened, what the Detonations caused I thought it was terrifying.

We're left with the perfect continuing series book.  There is some bit of an ending, but you know the story goes on.  You know there's more, but you're not left with this awful cliffhanger.  Nonetheless, I finished this book at 1:20am and ran to the library this morning to get the next book.

It was just that good.

dystopia reading challenge

I haven't done any genre specific reading challenges before (except YA) so I thought this was a good one to start with since I've got quite a few of these on my tbr list.  Hosted by Blog of Erised and full of fun stuff including some very cool looking badges!  There's a badge for each level so I'm starting with the first level.  Off the top of my head I can think of about 5 dystopian books I have yet to read so that's a good starting point.

Rules are outlined in detail on BE's blog and you can see those as well as sign up here.

Level 1: Recruit (1 to 6 books)

Level 2: Rebel (7 to 12 books)

Level 3: Revolutionist (13 to 18 books)

Level 4: Leader (19+ books)

Levels are:

• Recruit - 1 to 6 books
• Rebel - 7 to 12 books
• Revolutionist - 13 to 18 books
• Leader - 19+ books

So I'm going to start with Recruit and work my way up the ranks.

***Update***

I got my first badge!

1. Pure - Julianna Baggott

allegiant

allegiant
divergent #3
veronica roth
ya/dystopian/suspense
harpercollins
published 2013

What if your whole world was a lie?
What if a single - revelation - like a single choice - changed everything?
What if love and loyalty made you do things you never expected?

Oh, it's so hard for me to write a review for this book.  There are going to be spoilers in this review.  Major spoilers.  There is no other way for me to do this!

*****GET READY, SPOILERS AHEAD*****

I did not enjoy the back and forth part of the book.  Jumping from Tris's head to Tobias's head chapter by chapter was not well thought out.  If we were reading in third person and it would have been easier.  As it was, sometimes I would forget who I was walking in and it broke the flow for me.  A lot.  This is truly the act of a writer who lets the story develop as it should.  She didn't plot everything out, she let the story come to her.  I can respect that.  If I'm wrong, well then that just sucks.

I can even respect the way it ended.  To tell the truth, I thought the death toll would be higher.  I couldn't fathom an ending that in any way, shape or form left everyone whole and happy.

Some things I felt that Roth just kind of gave up on.  Tobais's solution to ending the war between the Allegiant and Factionless was maybe the best, but it kind of felt like a cop out, anticlimactic.  Although maybe it is the theme of the whole book.  Motherhood.  Family.  The family we are brought in by blood and the family that takes us in.

I don't know yet how I feel about the end, this last book.  I think I need more time to think about it.  :(

the kill order

the kill order
the maze runner #0/4
james dashner
ya/thriller/dystopian
delacorte press
published 2012

Before WICKED was formed, before the Glade was built, before Thomas entered the Maze, sun flares hit the earth and mankind fell to disease.  Mark and Trina were there when it happened, and they survived.  But surviving the sun flares was easy compared to what came next.

Now a disease of rage and lunacy races across the eastern United States, and there's something suspicious about its origin.  Worse yet, it's mutating, and all evidence suggests that it will bring humanity to its knees.

Mark and Trina are convinced there's a way to save those left living from descending into madness.  And they're determined to find it - if they can stay alive.  Because in this new, devastated world, every life has a price.  And to some, you're worth more dead than alive.

About halfway through I realized I was done with this book, but I read all the way through.  I wasn't hoping it would get better, I just had to finish it.  The Maze Runner was really good.  Really, really good and I would say that I wished it was a stand alone novel, but it did leave you on a cliffhanger and the story was a lot more than could be summed up in just one book I suppose.  But it wasn't until The Scorch Trials that I realized Dashner's writing wasn't that fantastic.  By the time I got to The Death Cure I really didn't like anyone anymore.

But The Kill Order was a prequel and I thought I would want to know how it all began.  What I didn't think about was how depressing it would be.  I mean, we already know things don't end up going so great for those who were around when the flares began.  So the whole time I wasn't wondering if Trina and Mark and their friends would die, I was wondering when.

So the first half was okay, but then the writing started to fall apart.  Conversations he added just to fill in the time were stilted and strange.  People don't talk like that, especially not people in dire situations.  By the end of the book I was tempted just to skip ahead and see how it ended.  Pages upon pages of fighting crazed people.  Punching, kicking, scratching...twice we had to read about Mark almost falling out of THE SAME WINDOW.  Well, maybe not the same one, but still.

It just wasn't good.  I wish I had stopped reading after The Maze Runner.

requiem

requiem
delirium series #3
lauren oliver
ya/dystopian/romance
harper collins
published 2013

After rescuing Julian from a death sentence, Lena and her friends fled to the Wilds. But the Wilds are no longer a safe haven—pockets of rebellion have opened throughout the country, and the government cannot deny the existence of Invalids. Regulators now infiltrate the borderlands to stamp out the rebels, and as Lena navigates the increasingly dangerous terrain, her best friend, Hana, lives a safe, loveless life in Portland as the fiancée of the young mayor. Requiem is told from both Lena’s and Hana’s points of view. The two girls live side by side in a world that divides them until, at last, their stories converge.

 this is the past:  it drifts, it gathers.  if you are not careful it will bury you.

And finally, it's over.

Nonstop, crazy action going on here.  If you weren't immersed in the Resistance with Lena you were trapped in a mansion with a crazy man with Hana.  It was pretty much just like that.  Seriously, there was very little down time in Requiem.

Despite being a trilogy with three (four if you count the short Alex at the end of the book) short stories focusing on background characters it is almost as if this story is too big to tell in just three books.  Oliver gives us a chance to write our own endings I suppose as there is so much we don't know at this point.  Who made it out, who didn't and to be certain, whose victory was it to claim?

I was right in dreading Alex's return, but I see why it had to be that way.  I wish ..... I wish there was more.  And not because I want the story to be neverending, but because I feel like there's so many characters that were so fleshed out and we got cheated out of our chance to hear their stories.  Coral, Pippa, Beast, Bram, Tack, Lu, Grace....I don't remember ever reading a book where I wanted to know so much about so many other characters.

At this point I've read Before I Fall, Liesl & Po and the Delirium trilogy.  I have The Spindlers on my Kindle so that one will round out my Lauren Oliver collection quite nicely.  I love that Oliver is diverse in her writing.  Fantasy, dystopian, introspective, what have you, she's not afraid to write it.

annabel

annabel
delirium series #2.5
lauren oliver
harper collins
published 2012

Lena Halloway's mother, Annabel, supposedly committed suicide when Lena was only six years old. That's the lie that Lena grew up believing, but the truth is very different. As a rebellious teenager, Annabel ran away from home and straight into the man she knew she was destined to marry. The world was different then—the regulations not as stringent, the cure only a decade old. Fast forward to the present, and Annabel is consigned to a dirty prison cell, where she nurtures her hope of escape and scratches one word over and over into the walls: Love.
But Annabel, like Lena, is a fighter. Through chapters that alternate between her past and present, Annabel reveals the story behind her failed cures, her marriage, the births of her children, her imprisonment, and, ultimately, her daring escape.

I generally don't write reviews on short stories or novellas because they're mostly just teasers without much to them, but Annabel was something I had been wanting without even knowing it.

Lena's mother has always been a ghost.  All we knew about her was that the cure didn't work on her and she killed herself because of it.  We find out later that she didn't commit suicide, but was imprisoned instead.  Later still we learn of yet another fate for Lena's mother.  And despite Lena's longing and curiosity we know very little of who Annabel really was.

This story attempts to bring Annabel closer to the surface for us and while it does give us a better glimpse of who she was it's hardly enough.  Annabel is a strong and rich character.  There is so much more to tell!  I think she would be well served with a book of her own, but I assume that because these are YA books we'll never really see that come to fruition.

We see Lena in her, although Annabel's rebellion is much more calculated.  Lena ran because she fell in love.  Annabel ran because she knew better.

reached

reached
matched trilogy #3
ally condie
ya/romance/dystopian
dutton juvienille
published 2012

Cassia faces the ultimate choices in the long-anticipated conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Matched Trilogy. 

After leaving Society and desperately searching for the Rising--and each other--Cassia and Ky have found what they were looking for, but at the cost of losing each other yet again: Cassia has been assigned to work for the Rising from within Society, while Ky has been stationed outside its borders. But nothing is as predicted, and all too soon the veil lifts and things shift once again.

In this gripping conclusion to the #1 New York Times bestselling Matched Trilogy, Cassia will reconcile the difficulties of challenging a life too confining, seeking a freedom she never dreamed possible, and honoring a love she cannot live without.

Perfection.

Complete and utter perfection.  Ally Condie made up for Crossed's lackluster performance tenfold.  I cried when it was over just because it was over.

There are so many books, especially YA books, that have the love triangle thing going on and usually it's a love/hate kind of thing for me.  I love one suitor, hate the other.  But in this trilogy that's impossible to do.  Ky and Xander are both amazing, wonderful characters that I couldn't choose.  And Cassia, she's not annoying, she's not stringing them along (a la Bella to Jacob in New Moon) she loves them both, but knows that Ky is the one she's to be with.  Her love for Xander means that she will go to the ends of the Earth to save him if she needs to as well as protect Ky.

There are usually characters you hate, but everyone here just found a place in my heart.  It sounds so cheesy and it's actually making me tear up here to think about it.  Indie....oh Indie was one I didn't trust at first, in The Carving, but she was worthy of her own book.  Eli, Hunter, Anna, Oaker, Lei, Molly, Bram, they weren't just background characters that you forget about.  They were an intergeral part of the story that wouldn't be complete, wouldn't be memorable without them.

Part of me wishes that the story would go on.  That I could follow all of them forever.  The other part of me is glad that there was this ending.  That I could rest in the knowledge that everything was as it should be.  Perhaps.

crossed

crossed
matched trilogy #2
ally condie
dutton juvenille
published 2011

In search of a future that may not exist and faced with the decision of who to share it with, Cassia journeys to the Outer Provinces in pursuit of Ky— taken by the Society to his certain death—only to find that he has escaped, leaving a series of clues in his wake.

Cassia’s quest leads her to question much of what she holds dear, even as she finds glimmers of a different life across the border. But as Cassia nears resolve and certainty about her future with Ky, an invitation for rebellion, an unexpected betrayal, and a surprise visit from Xander— who may hold the key to the uprising and, still, to Cassia’s heart— change the game once again. Nothing is as expected on the edge of Society, where crosses and double crosses make the path more twisted than ever.

The upside to this book was that we got to see things from Ky's point of view.  We learned more about who he was and what he's seen.

The downside is that is was just kind of boring.

Think about this: we've come to a place where children are being taken out to the desert and killed.  They have no hope, but three try to escape into a huge canyon (reminiscent of the Grand Canyon).  Constantly on the look out for the Society who will either capture them to return them to the 'villages' or kill them outright.

That sounds exciting, does it not?  Yet somehow, Condie was able to make it incredibly slow and boring.  She made it less about the action and what they were all trying to do and more about too awkwardly in love kids trying to figure out how to be awkwardly in love.  Maybe this is the truth in her book.  Most YA books center around two teenagers who desperately love each other and nothing else matters.  Their love is cement.  Here Cassia and Ky don't truly understand how to love each other except to make sure they find themselves together.  They are probably more realistic teens than any others I've read.

Cassia is still a worthy protagonist.  She's still so naive, but not in a weak way.  She wants to trust in the Rising so much, that this is what she was born for, that it will change everything.  She trusts that she loves Ky, but that she also loves Xander.  She questions the path she has chosen, but doesn't whine about the hardships she's facing.  Instead, she tackles them head on and still remains optimistic and radiant.  That in itself, a strong & capable female lead, is worth reading this series.

But that doesn't save the book from being ultimately quite snooze worthy.  I'm hoping with Reached we will get something worth ending.

y: the last man

y: the last man
unmanned
cycles
one small step
safeword
ring of truth
girl on girl
paper dolls
kimono dragons
motherland
whys & wherefores
brian k. vaughan/pia guerra/jose marzan, jr.
graphic novels/science fiction/thriller
vertigo
published 2003

From Shelfari: When a plague of unknown origin instantly kills every mammal with a Y chromosome, unemployed and unmotivated slacker Yorick Brown discovers that he is the only male left in a world inhabited by women. Accompanied by his mischievous monkey and the mysterious Agent 355, Yorick embarks on a transcontinental journey to find his girlfriend and discover why he is the last man on Earth. With a gang of feminist extremists and the leader of the Israel Defense Forces hunting him, Yorick's future, as well as that of the human race, may be short-lived.

Like most good books, Y: The Last Man had its valleys and peaks.  Yorick was not my favorite person most of the time, especially in the first few books.  He was kind of irritating and single minded.  Stuck on this romantic fantasy that his girlfriend was waiting for him in Australia and he really just needed to get to her.

The books had their tense moments and, most definitely nearing the end, very technical kind of science moments (that I would tend to zone out on).  Many sad moments, with very few triumphs.  Even when it was over, when the journey could end and the worst had past, there were no smiling faces.

There were moments when the crazies made sense and other times when I was ashamed that I shared the same gender as some of these idiots, but then I guess both sides have them, right?

I don't want to give much away.  I want you to read for yourself, because it is worth reading.  It's dark at times, probing, forcing you to really think about what kind of world this would be.  Is it so much science fiction or more science future?  Not necessarily a plague such as this, but other aspects.

It was, in the end a series written by a man who was trying his best to get into the head of women.  Did he do it?  Sometimes.

son

son
giver series #4
lois lowry
houghton mifflin harcourt
published 2012

Nearly 20 years after first introducing young readers to Jonas in The Giver Lois Lowry brings us the fourth and final book in the series with Son.

In my opinion, The Giver and the subsequent books (Gathering Blue & Messenger) paved the way for the modern YA dystopian novel.  Lauren Oliver's Delirium & Ally Condie's Matched series borrow quite heavily from Lowry's world and ideologies.  And back in the early 90's Lowry got plenty of flack for writing children books that spoke of themes other adults didn't think kids would understand.  But they did.  So much so that she revisited the series again to finish the story she began so long ago.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with The Giver series you should immediately go out and get familiar with it.  It's stunning.  It's honest and raw and simple, but complex.  It tells a story that must be told and it's beautiful and ugly all at the same time.  I loved them more than I thought I would.

In Son we get to close the circle.  I really can't say much more about the plot than that without spoiling everything.  I loved this just as much as the rest of the books, but I did feel like there were some parts that she took so long on that she had to compromise with parts I thought should have been more detailed.  It gets a little hokey near the end, slightly deviating a bit much, but you can forgive Lowry because everything else is just so brilliant.

insurgent

insurgent
divergent series #2
veronica roth
ya/dystopian/suspense
harper collins
published 2012

Tris's initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grow. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable — and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.

There was just so much death in this book.  While reading I realized how many of these YA books center around dying and war.  It's depressing really.

Tris is different now, changed. Frantic and somewhat lost after the death of her parents.  She clings to her brother and at the same time clings to Tobias while pushing him away.  She's constantly wounded in this book.  I don't even know how she continues to go on.

There are so many characters, so many people to keep track of that at times it's difficult to follow along.  Off the top of my head, Tris, Caleb, Tobias, Marcus, Lynne, Shauna, Hector, Uriah, Zeke, Christina, Tori, Joanna, Jeanine, Fernando, Cara, Marlene, Peter....it's exhausting.  But each character does bring something important to the story so it works. 

We're left with another cliff hanger type ending, but this time everything has been completely destroyed so I can't even begin to guess at where the beginning of book 3 will take us.  And it's not scheduled to come out until Fall of next year. 

Whaaaaaaaat??

pandemonium

pandemonium
delirium series #2
lauren oliver
ya/dystopian/romance
harper collins
published 2012

Pandemonium continues Lena’s gripping story. After escaping from Portland, Maine, Lena makes it to the Wilds and becomes part of an Invalid community, where she transforms herself into a warrior for the resistance. A future without Alex is unimaginable, but Lena pushes forward and fights, both for him and for a world in which love is no longer considered a disease. Swept up in a volatile mix of revolutionaries and counterinsurgents, Lena struggles to survive—and wonders if she may be falling in love again.

I liked Lena a lot more here than in Delirium.  She's harder, but it hasn't stifled her compassion.  She comes into the Wilds broken, hurt and ready to die but she soldiers on and make the resistance a priority for herself because she knows it's the right thing.  The 'now' and 'then' flip flopping of the chapters was great,  It felt like everything moved faster although it did leave little room for suspense because you basically knew the future when you were in the 'then' parts.

I dread Alex returning.  While I don't think that what Lena may have found in Pandemonium is deep, I dread the 'you hurt me' boy all butt hurt and acting like she betrayed him.  It's a character that's been done too many times in too many different novels and I was hoping this would be different.  Of course, I could be wrong.  We'll find out in March when Requiem comes out!

wither

wither
the chemical garden trilogy #1
lauren destefano
fiction/ya/scifi
simon & schuster bfyr
published 2011

After modern science turns every human into a genetic time bomb with men dying at age twenty-five and women dying at age twenty, girls are kidnapped and married off in order to repopulate the world.

Of course, it's not quite as simple as that.  At some point in the past scientists were able to cure all disease.  No one gets sick anymore.  No colds, no flus, cancer has been eradicated.  And then the children of these first born healthy humans known as the First Generation started dying.  Middle age was 10 and 12 and people frantically began searching for a cure.  No one was safe except for the Firsts.

Rhine's parents were some of those scientists who were working on a cure until on days, Pro-Naturalists bombed their laboratory and they were killed.  For years it's been Rhine and her twin Rowan keeping each other safe until Rhine is taken and sold off as one of three new brides for a wealthy architect named Linden.  On the surface the new life looks wonderful.  Every whim is catered to, the brides want for nothing.  Nothing, that is, except for freedom.

The book is gripping.  Rhine is determined to escape the gilded cage and return to her brother.  She is both careful and careless.  You forget at times what the whole theme means.  Girls as young as 13 being sold as wives and having babies so young, only to die before their children can really know them.  Heartbreaking.  Rhine is strong and stubborn, but she is compassionate and nurturing despite herself.  Her sister wives are all endearing in their own ways as well and there's times when you root for Linden and then want to slap him two seconds later.

Vaughn is mysterious and wickedly creepy.  The perfect antagonist in this house of horrors that Rhine has been confined to.

I give the book a good solid GO READ IT! recommendation.  So glad I picked up the second book and way too impatient for the last book to come out next year!