Reached, Allie Condie

Last one in the Matched series. good wrap up.

Quarantine, Lex Thomas

Teens trapped in an X, with diseases.

The Whisper, Emma Clayton

Post-apocalyptic scifi with psi-powers.

After the Snow, by S.D. Crockett

Post-apocalyptic ice age neo-feudalism in the woods, with a corrupt government dystopia in the cities. Well done. Willo's outsider skills and Mary's city knowlege were nice touches.

Article 5, by Kristen Simmons

This was a weird one. Felt like a cross between Hillary Jordan's When She Woke and Twilight, if you can grok it- near future right-wing religious America continuing to cut away women's rights (and many civil rights), but the main character, Ember, was a bit of a Bella, and despite the book focusing on oppression of women, there was a lot of weird psycho-sexual dynamics

Momentum, by Saci Lloyd

I LOVED both of the Carbon Diaries books, and had really high expectations for this one, but it felt like Lloyd, rather than keeping on writing visionary, very realistic near-future fiction, instead jumped on the far-out dystopian train, and fell off of it.
Splat. Much like the many falling parkourists through the book - and why the heck didn't she just call it parkour???? Like, people know what that is, Saci! You don't need to describe it at great length and then call it jumping.

Thumped, by Megan McCafferty

Sequel to last year's Bumped.
This was very much a sequel- I don't know if it would stand alone, but luckily I had read Bumped, so was able to jump right in without getting too lost.
Harmony and Melody, twins raised apart in a near future where a virus has affected human reproduction, and female fertility ends at around 18, are international celebrities for both being pregnant with twins. In Bumped, the girls find each other, but Harmony was raised in a kind of God-fearing commune situation, and Melody on the Outside, is putting her surrogate skills up for sale in a bidding war.
Melody's hired star inseminator Jondoe falls in love with Harmony, and is the father of her twins, instead of Ram, the husband she has inside the commune...
OK, I'm going to stop with the annotating.
While thought provoking and timely in addressing women's reproductive rights, this didn't really stand alone, and the ending was very wrap-it-all-up and happy endings for everyone to feel realistic, even in the surreal world they lived in.

Starters, by Lissa Price

Fast paced and interesting dystopia.
Teen's bodies are rented by Elders, adults who survived the Spore Wars and have utilized advanced medical technologies to the point where "250 is the new 100", and the wealthy Elders have technology that will allow them to enter and control a teen's body (while the teen is put into a medically induced comatose mental state).
There were just too many plot holes here- I really enjoyed it but it had major problems, conceptually, and in many ways it read as a mash-up of other popular dystopian novels.

Pandemonium, by Lauren Oliver

Follow up to Oliver's Delirium, which I felt was a much stronger book.

In Pandemonium, Lena is in the Wilds, and fighting the system- it's very much a middle book.



Ok read, but nothing spectacular.

Masque of the Red Death, by Bethany Griffin

With a terrible plague ruining the city, 16 year old Araby and her best friend April run wild in the city's notorious Debauchery Club, where only the wealthy and healthy can use drink and drugs to seek oblivion. Araby's father is the scientist who created the masks that keep citizens who can afford them safe, while the poor of the city have no protection from contagion.
When the Debauchery club doorman, Will, saves Araby from overdose one night, she begins to see that there is more to life than she knew, and soon has to decide for herself what is right and what is wrong, rather than what glamorous tattered gown she should wear to go party every night. Steampunky romantic plague-ridden dystopia- awesome!

The Selection, by Keira Cass

Fun but predictable near-future dystopian YA.
It is time for Prince Maxon to marry, and 35 girls are chosen to compete for his hand in marriage. 16 year old America Singer is one, and despite her many reservations, blah blah blah.
Fun, but I am not sure why it's getting such huge buzz.

Blueprints of the Afterlife, by Ryan Boudinot

Extraordinary post-apocalyptic novel. In the years after the FUS (Fucked Up Shit), residents of the Pacific Northwest are creating New York Alki on Bainbridge Island, using newman (essentially cyborg) labor, people are hooked into Bionet, which can be hacked by DJs who control them, the climate is fucked, polar bears (ACK) are gone, a rogue glacier has hunted down cities...
Overwhelming, epic stew of ideas and words, brilliantly done, but not super focused.
I loved it, it read like Bacigalupi in some ways, but I do wish it was a tiny bit tighter. So good though, and wildly different from Boudinot's first novel, Misconception, which I also thought was insanely good.

The Drowned Cities, by Paolo Bacigalupi

Wildly creative if depressing followup to Bacigalupi's Prinz-winning knockout Ship Breaker. This isn't a sequel- could totallly stand on its own- the only link between the books is the ravaged future America and the half-man called Tool. In this one, clearly set in and near a ruined Washington DC, war refugees Mahlia and Mouse are separated when he is kidnapped to become part of a troop of child soldiers, and Mahlia must choose whether to try to run or to try to save him. Brutal and very very dark, this was a haunting and brilliant book based on current events (child soldiers in Africa) that was drawn so clearly it seems inevitable.

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

I haven't read this since high school, so was interested to revisit Huxley's consumerist, pill popping vision of the future, and found it disturbingly on the mark in many ways, but still wildly off the mark in others. The promiscuity, consumer culture, and pill popping surrender is here, but the sentimentality regarding the family is definitely still here, and then some, in hallmark variations... so good, and so sad. Soma for all.

The Fox Inheritance, by Mary Pearson

An interesting but frustrating follow up to the excellent The Adoration of Jenna Fox. In this book, set 260 years after the accident that left only 10% of Jenna's brain, and let her parents re-create her using Bio-Gel, Jenna's friends Kara and Locke, who were 'killed' in the same wreck, have been re-created by a mad scientist from a hair of Kara's and a fingernail of Locke's. It seems that Jenna's parents scanned their brains at the same time they did Jenna's, and a corrupt assistant stole the 'boxes' that imprisoned their 'minds' for all those years. The exploration of AI rights was interesting, but the book didn't settle whether the Fox Standard of 10% was ethically right, and the ending was disappointing and left the essential question unanswered.

Legend, by Marie Lu

FANTASTIC dystopian YA. Rebel Day and Agent June are of opposite sides of a battle to control a near future police state California, but they are more alike than they know. When they come into contact with each other, explosive chemistry and an intense clash of ideals create a great tense read, and one with satisfying and memorable characters.

Fever, by Lauren DeStefano

A fantastic follow-up to the phenomenal Wither.

In this novel, unwilling bride Rhine and house servant Gabriel have escaped the luxurious prison of her husband’s mansion, only to find that the world outside the gilded cage is even darker and more dangerous than it had been inside. With their freedom the only thing they truly have, their struggle to remain free is all the more poignant. After being captured in a surreal and vividly painted brothel/circus, Rhine must use all of her strength to save herself, Gabriel, and a young straggler they pick up along the way. Without giving spoilers, it’s hard to describe more of the plot, but once again, DeStefano’s writing reimagines the familiar ground of YA post-apocalyptic dystopian near-future America, and creates a fully imagined world fraught with danger, but touched by hope. Different in tone from the nearly claustrophobic Wither, Fever is a fantastic sequel that doesn’t feel like “the middle book” at all- while leaving me panting for the next in the series!

Zone One, by Colson Whitehead

Amazing take on a classic zombie novel. So many "literary" authors are venturing into post-apocalyptic fiction that its hard to keep them all straight, but this one really stood out. Mark Spitz (the name is a joke you don't get til you're more than halfway through the book) has been, in his own mind, mediocre his entire life, but it turns out he has a hell of a survival instinct. In the blurred days since Last Night, he has managed to keep away from and survive enough skels (the dead) to make it to being a part of a clearing crew, a 3 person team working on buildings under 20 stories in Zone One, lower Manhattan.
In the choas of sweeping the city for stragglers, Mark reflects on what has been lost, and what may be to come, and human nature gets painted in some pretty ugly terms, but parts of the novel are lyrical in mourning what will pass, the chain restaurants, the easy commerce, the abundance of America. I think the resurgence of post-apocalyptic fiction is telling, and have written more about that elsewhere, but this is one of the finest examples I have read. Justin Cronin's The Passage was a straight-up Stephen King-ish horror vampire epic, Shteyngart's Super Sad True Love Story kind of skipped the apocalypse and led us right to moral ruin, but this book showed the steps in between. Wonderfully done.

Crossed, by Ally Condie

The second in Condie's YA trilogy, Crossed has Cassia leaving the safe confines of Society to search for her love Ky in the Outer Provinces. Disturbing scenes have Society dropping off unarmed young Abberations off in the wilds to serve as decoys for the enemy, and that is where Ky has ended up. Cassia and Ky's romance gets helped along by a few too many coincidences, but it was still a fast and enjoyable read, if of a very different tone than Matched.

A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter Miller

Dazzling early (1960) post-apocalyptic Sci-fi, with a heartbreaking sense of inevitability and repetition to our own self-destruction. Obviously born of nuclear nightmares, this still had  a strong message to send, despite a certain datedness. I can't believe I had never read this before, this was definitely filling in a gap for me. I still think On The Beach is a more powerful novel, but this went to darker places after the final clouds rained poison, and suggested that we would do it all over again.