Teen Review

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games is a book about a futuristic land that is ruled by the cruel capitol. Every year there is the annual Hunger Games which Katniss Everdeen seems to be caught up in. This book is a fantastic blend of romance, action, and adventure that will leave the reader in speechless amazement. This book would be good for anyone over the age of twelve. This book was written very skillfully; this sure is a delicious book!

-Teen Reviewer

Dystopian Fantasy

Have you tried a Dystopian Fantasy title yet? Dystopians are novels set in a world gone wrong where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives. In teen fiction, the focus is on young adults who fight for what they believe is right - often against authority or society.

Imagine your father tells you that a nuclear war is imminent. You are hustled away to an underground compound, where you will reside for 15 years when the air will be safe to breathe again. Six years later, you are 15. The food supply is tainted and your father offers a solution for survival that makes you question his morals, his honesty, and his sanity.

The Compound by S.A. Bodeen is the story of Eli, a teen caught in a desperate search for clues that will dispute his father’s claims about nuclear disaster and help his mother and two sisters escape their underground prison. An intense novel full of "edge-of-your-seat" moments.

In Unwind by Neal Shusterman, we learn about a society where unwanted teens are salvaged for body parts. Connor, Risa, and Lev are three teens, discarded by their families and scheduled to be unwound. Brought together by chance after making an escape from a journey that would ultimately lead to their demise, the three strive to fight to survive and rebel against a society with terrifying rules.

An intriguing tale with an unthinkable plot and a not-so-graphic unwinding scene that still might make you squirm.

You’ll find a list of other Dystopian Fantasy titles on the Teen Bookapalooza! page on the UFL website.

A brave new dystopia

Ball Peen Hammer by Adam Rapp. Yikes.

This is a short graphic novel, quickly read, unless you find it too disturbing to finish.

So what have we got? There's an artist guitar player sleeping in what seems to be a basement with a toilet that doesn't flush when a very, very large man in a gas mask climbs out of a manhole in the floor and heads up the stairs and out into the world. Some vague violence ensues, and he returns to his manhole. The guitar player has awoken and finds new stuff in the basement--there's a typewriter, inside of which is hiding a gun...

Part of the fun of reading this bleak, brutal book is learning about this odd world--its police state, the infection, and the jobs assigned to the guitarist and the man with the typewriter--which is why I'll tell you no more.

Thinking the Unthinkable: Books from the Dark Side

Do you like Sci Fi / Fantasy from the Dark Side? Some of the best recent releases have been dystopian fiction - books set in nightmarish worlds where the characters fight for survival, escape and freedom. There's a whole new list of them available in the teen area at the library, but here's a few to get you started...

Maybe you've already read Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series - stories set in the image-obsessed future where every 16 year old is surgically enhanced to fit the one ideal of Beauty. In addition to a fast-paced story, Westerfeld can really get you thinking about what it means to be attractive and how far you'd go to be beautiful... How about Cory Doctorow's high energy, high tech adventure story, Little Brother? After a terrorist attack, the book's teenage hero uses his wits and willingness to risk it all to evade the high tech police state. Doctorow already had me hooked by the end of the first smart-alecky, hip, humorous first chapter. Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is a must-read about a horrifying futuristic world with a reality show that pits two children in a fight to the death. The story is topping lots of the year's Best Books lists - and the sequel - Catching Fire - comes out in September. One of the creepier dystopian novels this year is Unwind - Imagine a futuristic world where a war has been fought between pro-life and pro-choice factions. Abortion becomes outlawed, and here's the really creepy part: unwanted teens can be signed away by their parents to be “unwound,” a process in which their bodies are harvested for parts. Watch for the climactic and shocking end...

These stories aren't for the faint of heart - but if you like risk, intense characters, and tight, suspenseful writing, stop by the library and get our new list of dystopian fiction: Thinking the Unthinkable: Books from the Dark Side...