Delirium

title: Delirium
author: Lauren Oliver
how I read it: epub from the public library

Amor Deliria Nervosa: the disease of love. People are horrified by the mere thought of contracting this deadly disease. Luckily for them, there is a cure. In the not-so-distant future, there is a solution to this dangerous illness: eliminate love and emotion with a simple brain surgery that marks the passage from childhood to adulthood.

Lena is months away from her 18th birthday and is nervously awaiting the tests that will match her to a job, a mate and a life before undergoing her procedure. Of course, a lot can happen in 95 days...

In Delirium, Lauren Oliver succeeded in creating a dystopian society in which people’s sense of identity and personal power are completely eroded. The heavy-handed control described in the book was suffocating and reminiscent of some of the classic dystopian fiction like 1984.

This is not an action-filled book. Although there are some suspenseful scenes, the book in general is very slow-paced. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. Despite its slow pace, I found myself riveted to this book, turning page after page (well, more like tapping the screen time after time, but you know what I mean.)

Young adult fiction generally has love and identity as central themes. This book is no different. While I do like romance, I prefer that love be peripheral to a larger story. This book had a very different approach; love was the story, with the larger political and social themes peripheral to Lena's emotions.

This might make sense in light of the fact that this is a book aimed at teens, and I remember well how all-encompassing teenage love can be. But as a reader, I found myself far more intrigued by what, exactly, might have led to this dystopian society and less interested in whether Lena and Alex would live happily ever after. That said, I do want to give Lauren Oliver a quick shout-out for bucking conventions and not creating a heartbreaking love triangle for her characters!

As seems to be a growing trend with teen science fiction and dystopian fiction, this book ends on a cliffhanger. I know that I’ve mentioned this before, but quite frankly, I find this trend tiresome. I am reading books. I am not watching serial television shows. If your writing and your story are compelling enough, then I will read the next book in the series. It’s fine to leave an ending open, with an obvious sequel to follow, but I still expect some closure at the end of a book. This book has more closure than some that I've reviewed, but still disappointed me a bit with the "tune in to see what happens next" ending.

That said, I will tune in for the next one.

This book made me want to: Dance.

Verdict: I'm still a bit indecisive. I think it was a really lovely book...but I'm not adding it to my list of all-time favourites. If you're a person who loves romance above all else, I think that you'll really enjoy this one.

Sequels: upcoming - Pandemonium and Requiem. Lauren Oliver held a contest and had blog commenters suggest titles for the last two books in the trilogy. I thought that was kind of cool!

Feed

title: Feed
author: M.T. Anderson
how I read it: printed book from the public library (first time), audiobook read by David Aaron Baker (second time)

Imagine pop-up ads drowning out your own thoughts. Imagine instant messaging your friends from inside your mind. Imagine being tracked, followed, targeted by advertisers without being able to turn off the ads. Imagine living your life to a neverending soundtrack of mindless TV soaps and inane pop music that is always on. Inside your brain.

Are you shuddering yet?

Now imagine that the vast majority of people willingly have chips ("feeds") implanted so that they can live in this constant stream of noise, ads, apps and useless information. On purpose.

From the first line of Feed ("We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck."), M.T. Anderson crafts a world that is coloured by disconnection, boredom, mindless consumerism, corporate branding, conformity, environmental degradation and utter indifference. Titus and his friends jump from activity to party to purchase, always looking for something that will hold their attention. When Titus meets Violet, a girl who wants to fight the feed, his world is turned upside down. Feed is a brilliant satire and social commentary that tackles some frighteningly real and timely issues.

I'm going to make a confession here: the first time that I read Feed, I thought that it was an okay book. I enjoyed it, but I don't think that I fully appreciated it until I listened to David Aaron Baker read it aloud.

Audiobooks force me to slow down and think about every word. Whereas in a print book it's not unusual for me to skim over long descriptions or flip back and forth to re-read favourite parts, in an audiobook I give up control. The reader controls the pace, the emphasis and the tone. David Aaron Baker's reading left me reeling. His voice, his inflections, his expression brought that book to life for me in a way that my own internal voice could not. He is masterful at voicing the book's different characters. And the advertising, jingles, songs and clips that punctuate the audiobook? Brilliant!

Until I listened to this book read for me, I hadn't realized just how funny it was. I was also able to more deeply appreciate Anderson's ability to "show not tell". Anderson doesn't tell me what life is like in Feed's world. Instead, he slowly reveals how people live, sentence by sentence and page by page. His is a rare gift.

The language and author voice in this book are very strong. Invented slang sometimes falls flat in fiction; that is not the case in Feed. The slang used in this book is believable and helps to further flesh out a world in which language and vocabulary are no longer terribly important. I was struck in particular by scenes with parents and doctors, with these educated adults struggling to express themselves as they stumble over "like"s, "so"s and "dude"s.

While I did empathize with the two main characters, the supporting characters are neither terribly likeable nor relateable. They are shallow, frivolous and ultimately interchangeable. While in another book this might be a flaw, in this book it worked perfectly. These kids live in a bleak and disconnected world; this was made all the more powerful by the fact that I didn't really care about many of them.

Feed is a frightening book, in large part because it paints a future that doesn't seem all that implausible.

This book made me want to: Turn off my computer and have a conversation with a real live person.

Verdict: Read this. No, listen to it. David Aaron Baker is a phenomenal reader and his voice combined with Anderson's words will leave you reeling.

Sequels: None! A stand-alone young adult dystopian novel? Is that even allowed?

The Knife of Never Letting Go

title: The Knife of Never Letting Go
author: Patrick Ness
how I read it: epub from the public library

Young Todd Hewitt lives in Prentisstown, a small settlement on New World. He was born there, and he knows nothing other than the world he lives in: a world where a Noise germ has infected people so that animals can speak and men hear each others' every thought. Todd is a lonely boy on the brink of manhood in a mysterious and aggressive village.

(Please don't be dissuaded by the talking animals. These animals "talk" the way that real animals might, words and pictures about whatever it is that they happen to be doing. Imagine a predator breathing "flesh" and "teeth" and "eat" while it watches you from beneath the water. These are not the whimsical talking animals found far too often in children's picture books.)

I will tell you no more than this. I started reading this book knowing nothing about it, and I'm convinced that it's best to go into this book with very little prior knowledge. As Todd learned more about his world, I learned alongside him; I believe that this made the book even more intriguing and fascinating. While many of the mysteries were really not all that surprising to me once they were revealed, I was still engaged and invested in Todd's sense of shock at all that he learned.

The author made some stylistic choices that I didn't love at first. I'm not a huge fan of books written in dialect, and although I was able to stop noticing the "yer"s and "tho"s after the first chapter, words like "attenshun" grated on me each time I read them. Maybe it's my own accent - but I really don't see that "attenshun" sounds all that different from "attention".

Still, other stylistic choices worked extremely well. This story is told in the first person, and Todd's voice is very strong. He is uneducated, innocent, stubborn, far less sure than he claims to be and utterly, utterly believable. The run-on sentences read like well-constructed streams of consciousness when Todd is confused or frightened. The cut-off sentences during action sequences added to the tension and suspense; I found myself breathless, my eyes skipping over each cut-off line to find out what would happen.

Overall, this is a fantastic book. It is very well-paced and the author is a gifted wordsmith. The story is original and thought-provoking. The themes that this book grapples with are huge: gender politics, individualism, privacy, religious fundamentalism, the atrocities of war. At its heart, this book is a strong and true coming of age story, with likable characters and an exciting plot that keeps you guessing.

Unfortunately, the last few pages of this book soured my reading experience a bit. Like many other young adult science fiction books, this book is the first installment in a trilogy (Chaos Walking Trilogy). While I am thrilled to know that there are two more books waiting for me, that doesn't lessen my disappointment in the utter lack of closure at the end of this book. The book doesn't end. It stops suddenly on a cliffhanger, one of my pet peeves in young adult speculative fiction. As I've mentioned before, I like to decide for myself to read a sequel, not feel manipulated by a story that doesn't even hint at an end. And to be honest, this ending felt a bit like a new TV series that ends on a cliffhanger in hopes that the series will be picked up for another year.

That said, I will absolutely read the next book. I became very emotionally invested in this book. My heart pounded at the scary parts, I laughed out loud a few times, and I actually cried - a true rarity for me. I have to find out what's going to happen to Todd and his friend!

This book made me want to: hug my dog. And my Mom.

Verdict: Original and compelling story. Had it ended, I would have said that I highly recommend this book to any and all. As it stands, I recommend it, but only after making clear my disappointment with the lack of closure.

Sequels: The Ask and the Answer, Monsters of Men

The Hunger Games

title: The Hunger Games
author: Suzanne Collins
how I read it: book that I bought

Imagine a distant future where 24 young teens are sent to fight to the death every year. The Hunger Games - designed to control the provinces of Panem by reminding them that rebellion is futile - pits kid against kid with only two possible results: death for 23, glory and riches for one.

Katniss Everdeen is a survivor. She grew up in poverty and hunger, providing for her mother and younger sister by illegally hunting in the woods outside District 12, a punishable offense. When she is chosen for the Games, she is whisked away from her family and dumped in the capital, a bewildering world of excess and media frenzy, before being sent to kill - or die - in the Games.

While the whole "force kids to kill each other to quell rebellion" strategy is iffy at best, the story itself is beyond compelling and it's very easy to just accept it at face value. Katniss is a strong, interesting, flawed character who changes and grows throughout the book. Sometimes you just want to shake her because she doesn't "get" things, but that somehow makes her all the more likeable. I found myself rooting for Katniss; I wanted her to survive, win, live. Other characters in the book are equally interesting and three-dimensional. I liked both Peeta and Gale, even if they did form two corners of the obligatory which-boy-should-I-pick love triangle that every teen fantasy or science fiction seems to have. And Rue - tiny, strong, tragic Rue - how could anyone not want to gather her up in their arms?

The idea behind The Hunger Games is not new. There are hints of Stephen King's The Running Man and The Long Walk, Koushun Takami's Battle Royale, Mad Max and a whole lot of reality TV. The nod to reality TV may have been the most fascinating part of this book for me. Reading about soon-to-be-dead kids being primped and prettied for the camera made me squirm a little bit. OK, this is different from Survivor or Big Brother - no one dies on those shows, after all - but there's this sense of voyeurism in the book that has uncomfortable parallels to the reality television that is so popular today.

The Games themselves are filled with harrowing and suspenseful scenes that stayed with me long after I read the book. After turning the last page, I honestly felt as though the words "brutal" and "violent" were created solely to define this book. You will find that some of its bloody, graphic scenes will be etched upon your brain. While I know that there's an inevitable movie version in the making, I stopped several times while reading to think "I hope that they never turn this into a movie". Kid-on-kid violence and murder would be really hard for me to stomach. I can only hope that the film won't be as graphic as the book.

This book made me want to: turn off America's Next Top Model and practice climbing trees

Verdict: Loved. It. One of the most compelling can't-put-it-down books that I've read in a very long time.

Sequels: Catching Fire, Mockingjay

Life As We Knew It

title: Life As We Knew It
author: Susan Beth Pfeffer
how I read it: purchased ebook

Miranda is a typical 16-year-old girl. She writes in her diary about the things that worry her: too much homework, fights with her mother, problems with friends, a crush on a boy. When the world starts getting excited about an asteroid set to crash into the moon, the only thing that bothers her is the fact that all of her teachers have assigned moon-related homework due at the same time. But then the two collide and the moon is pushed closer to Earth, changing both its orbit and Miranda’s world forever.

With a change in the moon’s orbit come massive and cataclysmic weather shifts; earthquakes, tsunamis, storms, volcanoes and drought kill millions of people around the world. One by one, the things that Miranda always took for granted are stripped away: school, food, water, gas, electricity, warmth, community, safety. All that is left for Miranda is her family and their struggle to survive in a dark, gray, lonely world.

The relationships between family members in this book are very believable. Like any realistic family drama, this is a story of sacrifice and love, but there's also plenty of bickering, jealousy and snark. None of the characters are always good; neither is anyone always bad. They are real, flawed human beings that make this story all the more compelling.

This is not an action-filled book. It's slow and quiet, the way that I imagine it must feel to die of hunger and tedium. The slowness and quiet are in no way dull; they simply add to the bleakness of the story. A story in which the world and its creatures are slowly dying couldn't possibly be anything but bleak. In some ways, it almost felt like a YA version of The Road, except at the beginning of the disaster rather than years later. Miranda's story is harrowing and gripping and I can't imagine anyone being able to put it aside once they've started reading. I read this book in one sitting and found myself feeling a little bit overwhelmed and nervous afterwards.

I don't enough about physics to know how plausible this story is. Still, this book is so real and engrossing that it's very easy to suspend all disbelief. Not only did I believe that it was happening to Miranda, I also started wondering if it could happen to me. Yeah, I may have done a google search on "how can I stockpile enough food to feed two adults for a year". I'm not too proud to admit it.

This book made me want to: buy a case of soup

Verdict: one of the best apocalyptic/disaster books that I've read! Highly, highly recommended.

Sequels: The Dead and the Gone, The World We Live In

The Forest of Hands and Teeth

title: The Forest of Hands and Teeth
author: Carrie Ryan
how I read it: ePub from the public library

Mary’s village sits alone and isolated, the last pocket of civilization in a sea of trees and horror. Mary’s life is one of constraints; she is bound both by the chain-link fence that encloses her small village and by the strict social rules that govern every aspect of her existence. Her life’s soundtrack consists of the moaning and rattling that surround her village and the Sisters’ lectures about what is expected of her.

I chose this book because the title intrigued me. I didn’t know what to expect when I began reading. The first thing that struck me was the author’s use of capitalization to show me What Was Important: the Forest, the Return, the Guardians, the Unconsecrated, the Sisters. To be honest, this stylistic choice struck me as a little bit clumsy and I almost put the book down. Then I realized that the Unconsecrated were zombies.

Yes, zombies.

So obviously I kept reading.

The concept behind this book is absolutely fascinating. This isn’t a story about surviving the chaos and terror of a zombie apocalypse. It isn’t about characters coming to terms with people dying and coming back to eat them. It isn’t about bands of humans turning on one another in a sea of shuffling, hungry, mindless, tireless creatures. (Oh, how I love zombie stories...)

Instead, this is a story about what happens after the world has ended. Over a century after the Return, people are used to the moaning undead scrabbling at the chain link fence, breaking their fingers and teeth trying to get through. That the dead return to eat the living has become a normal, everyday part of life. Mary, the main character, feels suffocated by the constraints put in place by religious leaders to protect, increase and ultimately control the small population of survivors who believe that they are the only humans left.

While the concept continues to intrigue me, I must admit that I didn’t feel much for the characters. Mary seemed somehow flat and unrelatable. She was not the contradictory, passionate, flawed, strong heroine that I tend to prefer in young adult novels. Instead, she was a bit dull and single-minded. She wanted what she wanted – whether what she wanted was a boy or the ocean – and she was willing to sacrifice anything to get it. I found her behaviour to be selfish and her passion not believable enough to excuse her selfishness:

“I promised him that I wouldn’t accept safe and calm. Not at the expense of my dreams.”

Nope, sorry. I’m just not buying it.

One of the main things that I look for in young adult fiction is character growth. At its heart, young adult literature is about growing up, changing, learning more about oneself and the world. Unfortunately, the Mary that we met on the first page of this novel was the same Mary that we found on the last one. The other characters in the book – Harry, Travis, Cass – were no more three-dimensional than Mary. The obligatory love triangle fell flat for me; I honestly didn’t care about the romantic conflicts at all. To be honest, the richest character was Argos, the puppy. I worried a lot about him during the zombie attacks.

I don’t mean to judge this book too harshly. Carrie Ryan’s debut novel was – as I’ve already said – based on an exciting and original idea. It was suspenseful and dark, as zombie stories should be. There were some unresolved mysteries in the story that left me wondering – that might be a negative for some, but it’s a positive for me. I prefer that books not end in a tidy package tied up with a bow.

The world was interesting enough to keep me reading and Ryan stayed true to the grim post-apocalyptic atmosphere that she set in the beginning. Had the author put more of an emphasis on character development and less on zombie attacks, I think that this could have been a very good book. I will definitely read more of her books, although I hope that her future work has stronger, more developed characters.

this books made me want to: learn how to shoot a bow and arrow

verdict: The Forest of Hands and Teeth is worth reading if you like zombies as much as I do, but don’t expect it to be life-changing. It won’t linger in your mind long after you’ve read it.

sequels: The Dead-Tossed Waves, The Dark and Hollow Places

Peeps

title: Peeps
author: Scott Westerfield
how I read it: once in print before giving it as a gift (what? I didn't break the spine) and once in ebook form

Cal is a Peep - a parasite positive. He's been infected by a parasite that alters human behaviour. The infected become light sensitive, strong and fast, phobic of the things and people they once loved, sex-starved, and very, very hungry for meat - human or otherwise. Luckily for Cal, he's a rare carrier rather than a full-blown Peep. Yeah, he's hungry and horny, but at least he's still mostly himself.

Peeps is a vampire book, except that there's nothing supernatural about it. This is no love story about a sweet young girl drawn towards a dark, brooding vampire. This is about garbage and rats and instinctive needs and infection and things that rumble deep in the Earth.

Peeps is suspenseful, fast-paced and easy to read. The tension mounts as the rats and garbage gather in the alleyways. There were a few scenes that made my heart pound, particularly when Cal found himself deep underground and close to a primal something that both terrified him and called to him.

Cal's voice - ironic, self-deprecating, funny, kind of nerdy - is strong and believable. Lace (Cal's new lady friend and partner in peep-hunting) is also likeable and funny, although it's a bit hard to believe that a woman in her twenties would preface every sentence with the word "dude".

Westerfield's take on vampirism is original and shockingly plausible, made all the moreso by detailed descriptions of actual existing parasites. This book is not for the squeamish. It hops back and forth between Cal's story and descriptions of parasite life cycles that are almost too graphic at times. (Well, too graphic for some. Personally, I love a good dose of gross.) These parallel parasite stories really creeped me out and helped me sink even more deeply into the story; if a parasite can make an ant climb the highest blade of grass and wait to be eaten by a cow, then who's to say that it couldn't change humans into mindless cannabilistic creatures?

Hey, it could happen.

There's an apocalyptic vibe to the book; you sense that the end is imminent, although the book doesn't fully go there. Peeps is a strong stand-alone book. While there are questions at the end that definitely leave you feeling that there's more to come, this book doesn't end on a cliffhanger designed to force you into buying another book. I love well-written sequals; I don't love being manipulated.

this book made me want to: study parasitology

verdict: I loved it! I highly recommend this book.

sequel: The Last Days