Delirium - Oliver - 2011

Title: Delirium

Author: Lauren Oliver

Year: 2011

Publisher: HarperCollins

Date Read: 3-13-2011

Overall: * * * * * (5/5)

GoodReads Blurb: Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing. They didn’t understand that once love -- the deliria -- blooms in your blood, there is no escaping its hold. Things are different now. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the governments demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Holoway has always looked forward to the day when she’ll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy.

But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable: She falls in love.

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My Review: I have very few complaints about Delirium. I really, really enjoyed reading it and was very sad when it was time to put it down. I didn't even know it was going to be part of a trilogy, and now I am very excited. I am digging all these new takes on dystopias, it is my new book obsession. Getting rid of love is such a good twist though, it's like Matched, but taking it one step further.

I thought Lena was a great protagonist; she's kind, conflicted, secretly rebellious. Her relationship with her best friend, Hana, because they were so very different but understood each other so well. Alex was a bit typical in his "mysterious outsider" ways, but he was very sweet and I believed in his relationship with Lena completely.

I didn't like the ending. For a book in a series, it was very much a "wide open" type of ending, where you knew something could happen in the future, but there was no urgency for something to happen right then. I think a book in a series should end in more of a cliff-hanger and should leave me absolutely needing the next book. I also didn't like the similarities to the Uglies series, with the outcasts living off the grid in nature somewhere, but I can get over that.

This is a great follow up to Oliver's previous book, Before I Fall, which I thought was amazing and gut-wrenching and really just wonderful.

To Purchase: Amazon, B&N

Also by this author: Before I Fall (2010)

Audio Book Challenge Review: The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins - 2008

2011 Audio Book Challenge: Book # 2 (of 6)

Title: The Hunger Games

Author: Suzanne Collins

Year: 2008

Read By: Carolyn McCormick

Publisher: Scholastic

Date Read: 2-4-2011

Overall: * * * * (4/5, based on audio book)

GoodReads Blurb: Could you survive on your own, in the wild, with everyone out to make sure you don't live to see the morning?

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that will weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

My Review: I really enjoyed listening to this book. I love The Hunger Games trilogy in print format, and I've been wanting to reread all 3, so I figured I could incorporate that into the audio book challenge I am participating in. At first, I was turned off by the reader's voice, because she sounds a lot older than Katniss, but after a few chapters I was used to it and her voice was actually very soothing.

There were many times that tears came to my eyes while listening to this book, because some of the sad or shocking parts seem even more real when they are read out loud. I wish the reader had given some more emphasis to Katniss's sarcastic inner voice, because I always found Katniss to be very funny, and I felt like McCormick didn't get that tone of voice the way I had wanted it to be.

A downfall of listening to this story was that I would have to stop listening when I parked my car and sometimes that would be in the middle of a suspenseful or action-packed part of the story, which made listening kind of a choppy experience. I am glad that the same woman does the other books in trilogy, because now that I am used to her voice, I really like it and I wouldn't want to have to get used to another voice.

To Purchase: Print version or Audio Book version

Currently Reading: Shrinking Violet by Danielle Joseph

Currently Listening To: Catching Fire (Hunger Games # 2) by Suzanne Collins (read by Carolyn McCormick)

Books Read in 2011: 17

I listened to this audio book as part of the 2011 Audio Book Challenge hosted by Teresa's Reading Corner

XVI - Julia Karr - 2011

2011 Debut Author Challenge: Book # 2 (of 12)

Title: XVI

Author: Julia Karr

Year: 2011

Publisher: Speak

Date Read: 1-30-2011

Overall: * * * * * (5/5)

GoodReads Blurb: Nina Oberon's life is pretty normal: she hangs out with her best friend, Sandy, and their crew, goes to school, plays with her little sister, Dee. But Nina is 15. And like all girls she'll receive a Governing Council-ordered tattoo on her 16th birthday. XVI. Those three letters will be branded on her wrist, announcing to all the world—even the most predatory of men—that she is ready for sex. Considered easy prey by some, portrayed by the Media as sluts who ask for attacks, becoming a "sex-teen" is Nina's worst fear. That is, until right before her birthday, when Nina's mom is brutally attacked. With her dying breaths, she reveals to Nina a shocking truth about her past—one that destroys everything Nina thought she knew. Now, alone but for her sister, Nina must try to discover who she really is, all the while staying one step ahead of her mother's killer.

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My Review: This book only furthered my love for dystopian novels. Nina is such a fiercely independent character, refusing to give in to the "sex-teen" ways that are constantly pushed upon teenage girls in the society she lives in. She is forced into becoming like a parent to her little sister, Dee, and though she loves Dee, she is also frustrated that this has happened to her family.

There was such a great contrast of characters in this book. Nina's best friend, Sandy, is nothing like Nina and cannot wait to turn 16 and caves to all of the advertisements that tell 16 year old girls how they "should" act. Nina doesn't want her life to belong to anyone else, and though the two disagree on a lot of things, their friendship still feels genuine.

I really enjoyed reading about Nina's base group of friends. Mike and Derek were great supporting roles, and their love and friendship for Nina and Sandy, and, later on, Wei was so evident. Wei was a great role model for Nina, a like-mind for her to find comfort in. Nina's budding relationship with Sal felt strange at first, because it seemed like I could feel Nina's confusion and discomfort with it.

I really liked reading about the way our future could turn out. It's one of my favorite things about dystopias, because sometimes it feels so real and so possible. Hopefully people read these books and are then determined not to let our world end up like this. I really liked that there is still a "Creative" designation, because at least it meant people could use their talents. In Matched it made me sad that people weren't allowed creative thought in any way. The ideas about what sex could mean in the future were strange, and rather disheartening, since 16 year old girls are sort of forced into thinking sex is great and can only improve your life, when in reality the girls could end up in what turns out to be a sex-trafficking scheme run by the government. Fun.

Another thing I liked about this book was the "chase" feeling. I loved that Ed could be anywhere and that there was this constant unsettled feeling and anxiety. This book really kept up the pace and it felt like it went by really fast. I didn't want the last pages to come. I am wondering if it will be a series or a stand alone story. There is some definite series potential.

To Buy: Amazon

Currently Reading: Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris

Currently Listening To: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (read by Carolyn McCormick)

Books Read in 2011: 12

Matched - Ally Condie - 2010

Title: Matched (1st in series)

Author: Ally Condie

Year: 2010

Overall: * * * * * (5/5)

GoodReads blurb: Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate . . . until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.

The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.

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My Review: This is the first book in a new dystopian series. It was like the Uglies series, The Giver, Logan's Run, and a passing drifter all got together and made a book baby. In the very best way possible. Cassia is different and kind and a teenager in a world where teenagers don't really get to do the things we currently associate with being young and carefree. There are strict rules, everything in your life is planned for by somebody else, and people generally aren't supposed to question this. Like the Uglies books without the weird plastic surgery part, though they do get rid of all the "anomalies." I really liked this take on what our possible future could be. I don't know when dystopias became something I really liked reading about, but they really pull me in and I like reading about how Cassia learns of the different types of love as she grows.

To Buy: Amazon