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Category Archives: dystopia
Book Review: Promised
Caraugh M. O’Brien Taken as a whole, I’m not sure what genre to assign to O’Brien’s series. Our main characters escape from one dystopian society to another, and then try to fix all the problems by joining the two together. Whether or not it works I will not spoil. But there are enough elements in … Continue reading
Book Review: Prized
Caraugh M. O’Brien The first half of Prized slowly strips away a lot of what we liked about Gaia Stone, fugitive teenage midwife. She escaped the dystopian Enclave with her baby sister, but at the cost of the guy she sorta-not-quite-sure-she-loves, Leon. After weeks in the wilderness, she’s scooped up by another dystopian society, Sylum, … Continue reading
Book Review: Birthmarked
Caraugh M. O’Brien Gaia Stone is a teenage midwife. And those two words, teenage and midwife, encapsulate many of her struggles in the Birthmarked Trilogy. TEENAGE. It’s a coming-of-age story. Gaia loses parental guidance, challenges a dystopian system, considers romance, and struggles with how her birthmarked face has come to define her. MIDWIFE. This series … Continue reading
Book Review: The One
Series: The Selection Kiera Cass YA There’s a lot to like about this last installment of Kiera Cass’s The Selection series. To bring you up to speed, America Singer is in a reality-show style contest to wed Prince Maxon. But each of them has other romantic entanglements. And then there are the political rebellions, terrorist … Continue reading
Book Review: The Elite
Series: The Selection Kiera Cass YA Welcome back to this dystopian cupcake of a series. I liked Elite, the middle book of The Selection Series trilogy, the same way I liked The Empire Strikes Back as a mid-trilogy installment. We’re past all the exposition and can delve deeper into our characterizations and plot complications. … Continue reading
Book Review: The Selection
Kiera Cass It was bound to happen: Princesses +dystopias +reality TV _________ The Selection I made a feast of this odd little stew of a book, swallowing some sections whole, sometimes savoring a passage as I sorted it into its component ingredients. Oh, I’m on The Bachelor. Nope, I’m in The Hunger Games. The plot: … Continue reading
Fortunate Events (a book giveaway) and Unfortunate Events
So I’m late to the party when it comes to A Series of Unfortunate Events. I just read the first three this month, because it seemed an Octobery thing to do. (Also because it’s Monday the 13th, the date Garfield the Cat fears most.) But as both a bibliophile and a denizen of pop culture, … Continue reading
Book Review: FOUR: A Divergent Story Collection
Veronica Roth Teen Dystopia It is hard to define this book. It is 2/3 prequel to Veronica Roth’s popular teen dystopia. The last 1/3 overlaps the timeline in Divergent. It’s all told from the point of view of Tobias, aka Four. A skeptical person will ask, Is this book really necessary? Don’t we already … Continue reading
The Giver: Movie Review
Jonas is old, to begin with. We must begin by accepting Jonas is old, the same way we accept Jacob Marley is dead on page 1 of The Christmas Carol, or the rest of the discussion will jam up right there. Once you accept that the screenwriters have added a hefty 6 years to our … Continue reading
