My Reading Frenzy

Ready for a change

It all started with The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and frankly I still think they are the best.  (Though to really give credit where it is due, Lois Lowry's The Giver is probably the true source of the genre.)  What I mean of course is alternative reality dystopia stories.  Before this there were vampires and there is still a big section of the bookstore in the YA section labeled "Paranormal Romance."  Dystopia does not have its own section, but it could:

James Dashner: Maze Runner series

Veronica Roth: Insurgent trilogy (final book due out in October)

Ally Condie: Matched trilogy

Marie Lu: Legend trilogy (final book due out in November)  I just finished reading the second book, Prodigy, which is what prompted these musings.

Catherine Fischer: Incarceron duo

Closely related:

Leigh Bardugo: Shadow and Bone trilogy  (second book was just released)

Rae Carson: Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy (final book due out in August)

and maybe even

Laini Taylor: Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy (no release date that I know of for the final book)

I enjoy this type of novel.  Another pre-cursor of which is 1984 by George Orwell, but I have had enough.  Once the trilogies I have started end, I will not be picking up a new series.  As much as each of these is unique, or I would not have read past the first 50 pages, they do start to blend together after a while. 

1.  Strong female and male characters, making the books appealing to all readers.

2.  Struggle against a corrupt or at the very least, deeply flawed government.

3.  Death of one or more significant characters resulting in big emotional impact.

4.  Romance thwarted by the circumstances and the need to place the greater good above personal happiness. 

5.  Hero's search for his or her true place and role in the brave new world he or she helped to bring about. 

I am not sure where I will go from here...hopefully into a wider variety of reading types to stimulate my brain.

Baby, You're Gorgeous

I have just finished Gorgeous by Paul Rudnick.  This is the first of anything I have read by him and what  I believe is his first YA novel.  Though this is one of the smartest and sassiest YA I have ever read. 

After Becky's mother dies she finds a phone number that will change her life.  Super-designer Tom Kelly will give her three dresses that will make her the most beautiful woman in the world.  She has 24 hours to accept and become Rebecca or go back to East Trawley, Missouri and live out her rather uninspiring life as Becky.  So of course she says "yes."  What follows is of course a novel about discovering ones-self, as all YA is.  (I have written about this before, but frustratingly cannot find the post, dang it.)  But so much more it is a novel about the power of beauty, the trick of beauty, and the love of self and others for what they are, not what they seem to be.  (There are many layers to this last one.)  It was a novel that truly surprised me and would be fodder for great discussions in a high school book club (Yes, this is solidly a high school choice.)