Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

One choice can transform you—or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves—and herself—while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.

Tris's initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable—and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.

New York Times bestselling author Veronica Roth's much-anticipated second book of the dystopian Divergent series is another intoxicating thrill ride of a story, rich with hallmark twists, heartbreaks, romance, and powerful insights about human nature.

My thoughts:
I loved Divergent when I read it a couple months ago and knew immediately that I wanted to read the next book in the series. It was hard to wait for.  I ordered it online, but it didn't come until the end of the week it was released and I eagerly checked the mail every day to see if it was here yet or not.  I thought for sure I had already reviewed it, but it turns out that I never did.  I have recommended it to a ton of people though!

The end of Divergent made me so worried that it was not going to work out as I hoped, not that things weren't bad at the end, but I wanted to know that at least one thing was going right and it did.  Now Tris and her small group must figure out how to clue in other people as to what is going on and get people on their side against the takeover by the Erudite faction.  This book gives you much more of a peek into what Amity is like, a faction we saw very little of in the first book.  People and groups are being forced to take side and the war has gotten just a bit more cut throat.  Tris is visited by guilt over how her parents gave their lives for her so she could continue, but at times she feels like she can't accomplish anything and should have died in their place.

The Erudite have fine tuned their mind control in a deadly, and unexpected way, and more and more Divergent citizens are found and persecuted.  How do you keep going when it seems as though everyone is against you?  How do you know right and wrong in a society in turmoil?  What if even those you think you can trust are actually working against you?  Can you trust yourself and your beliefs in the face of whole groups working against you?

It is hard at times to remember that Tris is only 16 years old and has the whole weight of society on her shoulders.  The end brings about something new to think about and I can't wait to see where Roth goes with the new information in the third book.

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9780062024046
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Publication date: 5/1/2012
• Pages: 544
• Sales rank: 101
• Age range: 14 - 17 Years
• Series:Divergent Series , #2

Meet the Author

More by this Author

• Divergent (Divergent Series #1)
• Free Four: Tobias Tells the Story
• Insurgent: The Special Edition
• Divergent Series Box Set

Veronica Roth is the New York Times bestselling author of Divergent, the first book in a trilogy that she began writing while still a college student. Now a full-time writer, Ms. Roth and her husband call the Chicago area home.

Matched by Ally Condi

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

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 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.

My thoughts:
I bought this book at the Book Fair at my children's school.  I saw a lot of blogs at the time about the book and, since the dystopian genre has had such fun books lately I picked it up.  This is another one that I finished a few months ago and just never got posted.  The funny thing is I thought I had written it, but when I looked for it i found out I was wrong.  I got book two for Mother's Day but haven't read it yet.

Cassia's world at first seems like it might be a society going down the right path.  Instead of trying to cure love, as in Lauren Oliver's Delirium, the members of society are matched with a partner that they can fall in love with.  They are matched to jobs by skills, partners by characteristics, they are delivered just the right amount of food for health, they can exercise to a certain level and they can join in some predetermined leisure activities.  People are healthy, follow the rules and there are few problems.  Old people die at an age when they are not a burden and have had a full life.  All the works of art, music, poetry and writing have been whittled down to lists of just 100.  The 100 best, the rest have been destroyed.  In theory it sounds good, but even the idea of imagining life without choices feels suffocating. 

Cassia is so excited when she finds out her match is her best friend Xander.  It seems like the night was such a success, until she views her video about him and catches an image of Ky as well.  That puts the whole "what if" idea in her head.  Instead of imagining the life she and Xander will have, she starts to wonder what it would be life if her match was Ky instead.  Between Ky and her grandfather, she starts to question a lot of things about their society and her eyes are opened to some things that she just hasn't noticed before.  I can't wait to read book two to see how things go from where they were left in this one!

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9780142419779
• Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
• Publication date: 9/20/2011
• Pages: 400
• Sales rank: 213
• Age range: 14 - 17 Years

About  Ally Condie

Ally Condie is a former high school English teacher who lives with her husband and three sons outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. She loves reading, running, eating, and listening to her husband play guitar.

Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

Book description:
I’m pushing aside
the memory of my nightmare,
pushing aside thoughts of Alex,
pushing aside thoughts of Hana
and my old school,
push,
push,
push,
like Raven taught me to do.
The old life is dead.
But the old Lena is dead too.
I buried her.
I left her beyond a fence,
behind a wall of smoke and flame.
Lauren Oliver delivers an electrifying follow-up to her acclaimed New York Times bestseller, Delirium. This riveting, brilliant novel crackles with the fire of fierce defiance, forbidden romance, and the sparks of a revolution about to ignite.


My thoughts:
I knew I wanted to read this book after reading the first one, but over the course of time my memory of Delirium has gotten a bit more vague.  I found myself wishing that I still had my copy of it to look back on, but I am trying to be really good about passing along, in one way or another, books that I have read unless they are my absolute favorites.  Otherwise I will never dig my way out of my book collection.

At first I was confused by the beginning of the book.  The chapters alternate between "Now" and "Then".  At first the "Now" doesn't make sense with what I remembered from the ending of the other book.  Why is Lena in school in NYC.  Was she caught and sent back after her escape?  Who is Raven who taught her to push past the past and live in the now?  But as you read along it all starts to fall into place and make sense.

Living on the other side of the wall isn't quite what Lena thought it would be.  Alex never fully prepared her for how they would live once they were there.  I found myself wondering what had happened to Hana and Grace, her best friend and cousin, when they were left behind without her.  Did Hana feel betrayed or lost without her friend, or did she go on to her procedure to be cured of deliria (love, strong emotions and even anger) and forget about her as they had feared all along.  I also found found myself wondering when deliria became such a big issue, how long had people been going under the procedure to be cured and how many people are there living outside of the walls.  Is Lena right that the walls for the cities will keep expanding outwards until all the open, wild spaces are gone.  How much do we take on face value and how much more is there behind some of the truths we learn in history classes in schools and classrooms.  These children learned that the bombs fell and the infected people in the wild were gone, but Lena sees the lockers at a school still with clothes and books in them.  The mess that was made of stores, churches and home from the wreckage left behind and she knows it wasn't quick and painless as it was portrayed to them by teachers.

What is worth giving up your freedom for?  How much is freedom worth fighting for?  This dystopian world is set over top of our country.  NYC is there, inside a fence, living under the guidance of living deliria free.  Meantime, outside the fences and walls are groups of people living precariously without enough food and with very little security from day to day, surviving and hoping to make a difference for the future of the country.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins (February 28, 2012)
• ISBN-10: 006197806X
• ISBN-13: 978-0061978067
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1.4 inches

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Overview

In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

Veronica Roth is the New York Times bestselling author of Divergent, the first in a trilogy of dystopian thrillers filled with electrifying decisions, heartbreaking betrayals, stunning consequences, and unexpected romance.

My thoughts:
I knew I wanted to read this book for some time now, but I have so many books around to read that I put off buying it.  I even had it in my hands at Barnes and Noble a couple months ago, and put it down to wait on.  Last week I had a bookfair at Barnes and Noble and planned to use a gift card from Christmas to buy the book and I could not find it on the shelf.  I decided to get a preview of it on my Kindle and then, once I had started it, I had to buy it to finish it.  I loved it!  It is the book I have enjoyed the most lately and, even though I finished reading it a few days ago, I still can't stop thinking about it.

There are five factions in this world who have devoted themselves to one positive aspect of human nature.  They live in segregated groups, but go to school together up until the given day when all sixteen year olds must make their decision as to where they will live as adults.  They can stay with their family's current faction or change, but changing means they are cut off from their family for good.  Prior to making this decision each student undergoes a test administered by someone from a different faction to see which faction they have the aptitude to belong to. 

I stayed up way too late to finish this book the other night, I had to see what was going to happen and I was a bit worried about one of the characters.  Thinking back to how I couldn't stop thinking about this book I can't figure out why I don't have more to say about it.  Beatrice has grown up in Abnegation, the faction the values selflessness.  They dress in grey, their homes are made of cinder blocks and most of what they have is the same.  They are this way so they can forget themselves and do what is best for all and it makes them almost invisible to the other students at school, except for recently when they have been bullied and accused of hording fresh fruit and supplies.  Every morning Beatrice watches the Dauntless students arrive by jumping off of a moving train.  She is pushed around by the Erudite's who call her a "Stiff" and invisible to the students from Amity.

Beatrice, or Tris as she comes to be known after the Choosing Ceremony, is a small for her age sixteen year old, but she makes a tough decision and stays her course to succeed in her chosen faction.  Bullies abound and tough feats are attempted and accomplished.  I think this book lives up to it's hype as similar to the Hunger Games.  I can't wait for book two to come out at the beginning of May!

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9780062024039
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Publication date: 2/28/2012
• Edition description: Reprint
• Pages: 576
• Sales rank: 107
• Age range: 14 - 17 Years
• Series:Divergent Series, #1

The Death Cure by James Dashner (Maze Runner #3)

Overview

Thomas knows that Wicked can't be trusted, but they say the time for lies is over, that they've collected all they can from the Trials and now must rely on the Gladers, with full memories restored, to help them with their ultimate mission. It's up to the Gladers to complete the blueprint for the cure to the Flare with a final voluntary test.

What Wicked doesn't know is that something's happened that no Trial or Variable could have foreseen. Thomas has remembered far more than they think. And he knows that he can't believe a word of what Wicked says.

The time for lies is over. But the truth is more dangerous than Thomas could ever imagine.

Will anyone survive the Death Cure?

My thoughts:
This audio book was darker and scarier than the first two.  This time you know you are reaching the conclusion and it starts to be hard to feel helpful after the other times Wicked has lied to the Gladers about them being done with the Trials, only to throw something else at them.

As they find out who is and isn't immune in their group and who does and does not wish to get their memory back, it gets hard to know who to trust and who is doing the right thing.  How has the government let the world get this far, how have they not taken better precautions with the general population to avoid the spread of the Flare?  Is it all really for the greater good? 

Thomas is tortured too with how much he had to do with implementing the plan in the maze, how much is he responsible for, will he like himself when and if he allows his memory to be restored?  Watching friends sink into insanity I wondered how it was avoided for so long in the Glade.  If Wicked knew some of the test subjects were not immune, but were being put in this situation, how did they know that they would escape in time before the madness took over?  How long does it really take for the Flare to fully overtake a person?

Without revealing too much, I have to say I was happy with the outcome at the end, it seemed like the best option after all was said and done, but I do hope that some of the other outcomes might end up being positive at some point.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780385738774
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Publication date: 10/11/2011
Pages: 336
Age range: 12 - 17 Years
Series: Maze Runner Series, #3

Wither by Lauren DeStefano (Book One in Chemical Garden Series)

Overview

By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males born with a lifespan of 25 years, and females a lifespan of 20 years--leaving the world in a state of panic. Geneticists seek a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.

When Rhine is sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Yet her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement; her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next; and Rhine has no way to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive.

Together with one of Linden's servants, Gabriel, Rhine attempts to escape just before her seventeenth birthday. But in a world that continues to spiral into anarchy, is there any hope for freedom?

My thoughts:
I listened to this as an audio book on my Ipod as I ran.  The story was so engrossing there were times I was willing to run for longer just to keep listening.  Lately I feel like all the YA books I've read have been dystopian.  I recall seeing this one reviewed on a number of blogs months back, probably around it's release time at the beginning of 2011.  I added it to my TBR list, but it can take me quite a while to get to all the books I want to read.

This book painted a scary portrait of the world, where some sort of fluke with the first generation has caused all of their children to have shortened lifespans.  The first generation were test tube babies.  One thing I kept wondering, and wondering if I had missed while listening, is why that generation then decided to have children without using any artificial means.  If there was a problem why not go back to DNA from before to see if things could be fixed rather than doing the same thing over and over with the same results.  Perhaps that would not have made for such a good story, or maybe I missed that when listening.

Another inaccuracy in the book was that once a baby has been fed formula it will not be willing to nurse again.  While I did not use formula with my children I know plenty of families who use a combination of formula and breast milk/nursing and have no problems switching between the two.  That point made me cringe because this book is for YA readers and I hate for that idea to get stuck in their heads.  Done with my soapbox now, that isn't really the point of the story just an issue that rubbed me the wrong way.

Rhine goes out one day one her own, which she usually never does sticking with her twin brohter, Rowen, for safety.  She is hoping to find a job to help her brother in providing for them.  They spend all their time and energy on surviving.  Instead of finding a job, Rhine is sold to be a bride of a wealthy governor who lives in a totally different state.  Once there she and her two new sister wives are held on a floor of the house with their bedrooms locked, they are forced to marry a man they do not know, and are then given some freedoms within the property.  The two other new wives were both from orphanages, while Rhine and her brother had continued to live in the home of their parents after their death.

Rhine gets to know and like her sister wives and comes to understand her new husband, who is dealing with the sickness and death of his first wife and love when they enter his home.  After the life she lived of worrying for survival all the time, this lief is luxurious, with servants and technology and no need to work.  It is easy to get distracted by everything, but then she will remember her brother and how she got to where she is and she is determined to find a way to run away and get home to her brother and New York.

Imagine knowing your death is so close when you have barely lived?  What would you be willing to do to live those years as you wish?  It will be interesting to see where this series goes in book two which comes out at the end of this month.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781442409057
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
Publication date: 3/22/2011
Edition description: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Pages: 368
Age range: 14 - 17 Years
Series: Chemical Garden Series, #1

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Overview

When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his first name. His memory is blank. But he’s not alone. When the lift’s doors open, Thomas finds himself surrounded by kids who welcome him to the Glade—a large, open expanse surrounded by stone walls.

Just like Thomas, the Gladers don’t know why or how they got to the Glade. All they know is that every morning the stone doors to the maze that surrounds them have opened. Every night they’ve closed tight. And every 30 days a new boy has been delivered in the lift.

Thomas was expected. But the next day, a girl is sent up—the first girl to ever arrive in the Glade. And more surprising yet is the message she delivers.

Thomas might be more important than he could ever guess. If only he could unlock the dark secrets buried within his mind.

My thoughts:
I'm not sure why it took me so long to pick up this book, I know many people compared it to The Hunger Games and I really enjoyed that trilogy.  A friend listened to it with her children on audio and told me they really got into it.  I was a bit leery as I knew there would likely be violence, but I checked it out of the library and we listened to it last week.  I am still feeling like there is more violence than I would like for their current ages, but they got very into the story and seem to comprehend well what is happening.  We stopped to talk at more than one point about violence or the way characters were treating each other, but it is a well done story that appeals to a wide age group.  Yesterday we stopped by the library to pick up books two and three on audio as well.

If I were comparing The Maze Runner to The Hunger Games, The Hunger Games would win.  I'm not sure if it is because the main character is female or if it has to do with the dystopian worlds and how they were portrayed.  In both children are being used for a purposes children were not intended for by people who should be protecting them.  It will be interesting to learn in books two and three more about what and why the maze was built and what exactly the end goal was.

Imagine the terror of waking up only being able to remember your name and nothing else about yourself and being dumped in a place where everyone else is in the same boat.  Then the monsters in the maze and the distrust by others in your group sounds exhausting.  I don't even really know where to begin talking about this book.  The author creates a very well drawn world that becomes very real in your mind.  I imagine Thomas and his hints of deja vu about the maze and the the mysterious girl who is sent up the day after him.  How do you get people who have been working together for months or years to trust someone who is new but thinks he knows what they need to do to get out of the maze.  What will the world be like outside of this experiment?

It will be interesting if this makes it to the big screen as a movie.  I looked and it seems like talks are in the works with a tentative 2013 date for a film, but I couldn't find a whole lot of details.  I know lots of times things fall through, but this seems like one that will go all the way especially with the success recent book to movie adaptations for YA books.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780385737951
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Publication date: 8/24/2010
Pages: 400
Age range: 12 - 17 Years
Series: Maze Runner Series, #1

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (reread and second review)

Last night, or maybe I should say early this morning, I finished my reread of Mockingjay.  I still found it to have a bit of a slow start, but by the end I didn't want to put it down.  My sleepiness today is a testament to that!  Again since I knew most of the story I was looking for any details I might have missed and also trying to see the actors chosen for the roles in the movie in the parts in my mind.

How much does District 13 have to answer for?  They had to rebuild and that of course took time, but did it really take them 75 years to rebuild or could they have come to the aid of the districts sooner.  How different is life for the refugees in their new homes?  They now are guaranteed food, but punished if they try to get any extra rations, they have clean clothes but they are all identical.  They have a regimented schedule printed onto their arms every day and are all expected to pitch in to the war efforts.  The people from District 12 are grateful to be alive and to have shelter, but President Coin's methods start to seem so similar to President Snow.

Katniss is dealing with a lot, finding out about the plan that other Victors were privy to but she and Peeta were unaware of, the guilt of what happened to some of the other contestants and anger.  The part of the story that was the most compelling to me was the last third of the book, when everything is coming to a head and quick decisions have to be made.  I still find it a bit haunting.  It was hard for me to jump back into the audio book I have going in the car because part of me thought that I was still in Mockingjay and I felt almost as confused as Katniss.

I hope that the first movie is successful because I would like to see how the whole trilogy plays out on the screen.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

With the movie coming up I decided it was time to reread this book.  Last summer when I read Mockingjay I really wanted to go back and reread the other two.  Sometimes it is hard to take the time to reread a book or series knowing that there are so many other good books out there, but I keep reminding myself that reading is for fun and there is no right or wrong.  It isn't like I have to read a certain number of books, so when I start to take the fun out of reading I try to take a step back.

Knowing the outcome of this book allowed me to step back and notice other details that might not have seemed as important the first time I read the book.  It turns out I actually remembered the book better than I thought I would have considering I read it almost two years ago. 

The contrast between what the people in the Capital have and the people in the districts have is so huge.  In District 12 they only have electricity for two or three hours a day while the Capital has hovercrafts and expensive  medicines, while there is so much to eat and so little to do that people are surgically augmenting themselves with tattoos and skin dye.  I was left wondering how the people in the Capital ended up there.  Was it just about where you lived when Panem was formed?  Could people from the districts ever have the chance to move to the Capital?  Do any of them have relatives in other districts and can they communicate with them? 

We have some of the same issues now.  Some people have so much money that they spend it on unnecessary items while people in the same city are homeless and starving.  How can a society manage to provide for all its members?  How hard should survival really be?  How do we help those less fortunate without making it so easy that people start to expect not even need to help themselves at all?

Above all that, where does reality television reach a point where it is too much?  Just as Katniss views her prep team as a group of silly pets, they view the contestants in the Hunger Games as less than people too.  Can the Capital group and the Districts ever see each other as other humans?

It will be interesting to see how this plays out on the screen.  Of what has to be cut to keep the movie to a manageable length and what makes it in and how the faces of the actors will supplant the ones readers formed on their own when they were reading.  Already I lost my picture of Katniss and replaced it with Jennifer Lawrence from a photo on the cover of Entertainment Weekly.

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Synopsis

Ninety-five days, and then I'll be safe. I wonder whether the procedure will hurt. I want to get it over with. It's hard to be patient. It's hard not to be afraid while I'm still uncured, though so far the deliria hasn't touched me yet. Still, I worry. They say that in the old days, love drove people to madness. The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don't.

Lauren Oliver astonished readers with her stunning debut, Before I Fall. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called it "raw, emotional, and, at times, beautiful. An end as brave as it is heartbreaking." Her much-awaited second novel fulfills her promise as an exceptionally talented and versatile writer.

My thoughts:
Last year I had the chance to read Lauren Oliver's first novel, Before I Fall, as part of Barnes and Nobles First Look Book Club.  I got so into the book that I read it all in a day or two.  Something about it grabbed me right from the start and kept me reading straight through to the end.  In this, her second book, I wasn't hooked quite as early.  Once I was I finished it in two days, but I put it down for a while to finish  library books and review books, then picked it back up.  It could have also been that I was just too distracted when I started it as well.

Lena starts the novel impatiently waiting for her day to receive the cure for love, a brain operation that all citizens receive sometime after they have turned 18.  Love was identified as a disease 63 years earlier and 43 years ago a cure was developed that has led to a society without wars.  To go along with that, the residents of Portland, Maine, as well as all the other towns, are surrounded by an electrified fence to keep them safe from Invalids who live in the wilds.  Invalids are people who have resisted the cure and live outside of the cities.  The government bases your profession on how you score on standardized tests and gives you approved matches for marriage based on your evaluation scores.  Lena can't wait to escape the chance of disease until she herself finds love and starts to see how the protections provided by society also work in reverse to keep people in a prison like environment.

This book reminded me a bit of Suzanne Collins Hunger Games series.  People are kept in and not allowed to leave.  It also called to mind a mini-series I recall from many years ago called Amerika.  Unfortunately my details of the mini-series are pretty sketchy, but I recall gates and one of the characters being caught doing something against the rules and having a procedure done that made him almost like a vegetable.  I wondered if the procedure in this book was like a lobotomy but less severe.  All of the adults seem a bit detached.  One of the possible side effects is a detachment for a mother or father from their child that makes them unable to care for the child.

Not all of the cured individuals believe in the system, so there is a network of people working against the government.  This resistance has members on the outside called Invalids and inside who, if found, are labeled Sympathizers.  Phone calls and all interactions are monitored and have the possibility of being reported.  Everyone is afraid of what their neighbor might see and report to the monitors.  A society managed through fear.

Lena meets Alex a few times before he helps save her from a raid on an illegal party.  As they get to know each other they start to spend more and more time together secretly.  Alex introduces her to ideas she has never had and opens her eyes to the way things work.  He gets her to start thinking for herself and being herself,which has always been discouraged.  Seeing Lena grow and change within this constrictive society gave me hope.  It also made me wonder how much people in general just accept how things are and go with them, how they plod from day to day looking to the future without giving too much thought to how they could change things for the better in the here and now.


Product Details

Pub. Date: February 2011
Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books
Format: Hardcover , 441pp
Age Range: Young Adult
ISBN-13: 9780061726828
ISBN: 0061726826

"Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins

My rating 4.5 out of 5
Where I acquired the book: borrowed from the library

Product Details
Reading level: Young Adult
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Scholastic Press; 1 edition (September 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0439023491
ISBN-13: 978-0439023498

Synopsis from Amazon.com

Every year in Panem, the dystopic nation that exists where the U.S. used to be, the Capitol holds a televised tournament in which two teen "tributes" from each of the surrounding districts fight a gruesome battle to the death. In The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, the tributes from impoverished District Twelve, thwarted the Gamemakers, forcing them to let both teens survive. In this rabidly anticipated sequel, Katniss, again the narrator, returns home to find herself more the center of attention than ever. The sinister President Snow surprises her with a visit, and Katniss’s fear when Snow meets with her alone is both palpable and justified. Catching Fire is divided into three parts: Katniss and Peeta’s mandatory Victory Tour through the districts, preparations for the 75th Annual Hunger Games, and a truncated version of the Games themselves. Slower paced than its predecessor, this sequel explores the nation of Panem: its power structure, rumors of a secret district, and a spreading rebellion, ignited by Katniss and Peeta’s subversive victory. Katniss also deepens as a character. Though initially bewildered by the attention paid to her, she comes almost to embrace her status as the rebels’ symbolic leader. Though more of the story takes place outside the arena than within, this sequel has enough action to please Hunger Games fans and leaves enough questions tantalizingly unanswered for readers to be desperate for the next installment.

My thoughts:
It took me a few pages to get back into this story, which is the same thing that happened with "The Hunger Games" but once I was hooked I read the book over the course of a day. This time, surprisingly, I wasn't quite as full of questions at the end as I was at the end of the last one. I almost feel like I should have more questions, but for some reason I don't.

One thing I wonder about is the envelopes for the Quarter Quells that state what will make each 25th anniversary special or different from the regular Hunger Games. I am not altogether convinced that these were put together after the uprising and stored away. The envelopes perhaps but not necessarily what is inside of them. I really felt like President Snow might have put in the terms for this one as a punishment for Katnis and Peeta and for all the other winners. Maybe to show the people that they are never safe no matter what. I could feel Katnis's horror when she found out that she would have to be a part of the games again, especially with all of the nightmares she was still having. Also, I can't see how she will ever be able to make a choice between Peeta and Gale if it comes to a time when she is even in a position where a choice can be made. I was left feeling hopeful at the end of the story and will keep August in mind for the final installment of the series. I loved Cinna dress creation for Katnis for the interviews and wonder about his fate.

"The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 4 out of 5
Where the book came from: borrowed from local library

Synopsis from Amazon.com:
From Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. SignatureReviewed by Megan Whalen Turner If there really are only seven original plots in the world, it's odd that boy meets girl is always mentioned, and society goes bad and attacks the good guy never is. Yet we have Fahrenheit 451, The Giver, The House of the Scorpion—and now, following a long tradition of Brave New Worlds, The Hunger Games. Collins hasn't tied her future to a specific date, or weighted it down with too much finger wagging. Rather less 1984 and rather more Death Race 2000, hers is a gripping story set in a postapocalyptic world where a replacement for the United States demands a tribute from each of its territories: two children to be used as gladiators in a televised fight to the death.Katniss, from what was once Appalachia, offers to take the place of her sister in the Hunger Games, but after this ultimate sacrifice, she is entirely focused on survival at any cost. It is her teammate, Peeta, who recognizes the importance of holding on to one's humanity in such inhuman circumstances. It's a credit to Collins's skill at characterization that Katniss, like a new Theseus, is cold, calculating and still likable. She has the attributes to be a winner, where Peeta has the grace to be a good loser.It's no accident that these games are presented as pop culture. Every generation projects its fear: runaway science, communism, overpopulation, nuclear wars and, now, reality TV. The State of Panem—which needs to keep its tributaries subdued and its citizens complacent—may have created the Games, but mindless television is the real danger, the means by which society pacifies its citizens and punishes those who fail to conform. Will its connection to reality TV, ubiquitous today, date the book? It might, but for now, it makes this the right book at the right time. What happens if we choose entertainment over humanity? In Collins's world, we'll be obsessed with grooming, we'll talk funny, and all our sentences will end with the same rise as questions. When Katniss is sent to stylists to be made more telegenic before she competes, she stands naked in front of them, strangely unembarrassed. They're so unlike people that I'm no more self-conscious than if a trio of oddly colored birds were pecking around my feet, she thinks. In order not to hate these creatures who are sending her to her death, she imagines them as pets. It isn't just the contestants who risk the loss of their humanity. It is all who watch.Katniss struggles to win not only the Games but the inherent contest for audience approval. Because this is the first book in a series, not everything is resolved, and what is left unanswered is the central question. Has she sacrificed too much? We know what she has given up to survive, but not whether the price was too high. Readers will wait eagerly to learn more.Megan Whalen Turner is the author of the Newbery Honor book The Thief and its sequels, The Queen of Attolia and The King of Attolia."

My thoughts:
Before starting the book I didn't let myself read any other reviews so that I could create my own opinions of the story. I hate to know too much before I start. For this reason with movies I like to only see a preview once or twice so I can be more surprised by the actual finished product. Although I enjoyed the book it didn't go as quickly as I thought it would. The first time I picked it up I only got a few pages and then put it down and read a few other books. When I picked it up the second time I got into it right away. While I understood the premise of the Hunger Games I also had an inkling of the outcome because this book is the first in a series, it might have been better to have it be a stand alone novel. Also, I didn't care for the open ended way it ended. I know it needed to be left open for the next book, and I am lucky that I waited this long to read the first since now I can move right on to the second, but it reminded me a bit of the openness of the endings for the Fever series by Karen Marie Moning. Like the end of a season of a tv show that leaves you hanging so you'll tune in again in the fall. To me, if the writing is good I will go back for more by the same author and about the same characters even if I am not being teased by a cliff hanger. Perhaps with YA books this is more common to keep younger readers hooked.

The story this first called to mind for me was "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. Usually when we think of having our name chosen from a bowl winning is the desirable option, but in both of these stories it is what everyone is crossing their fingers hoping against. Kind of like sacrificing virgins to the gods hoping for favor, they seem like pointless rituals from the outside.

Haymitch, the advisor to Peeta and Katniss, the two tributes from District 12, is described as frequently being drunk. Haymitch was the winner of the Hunger Games many years before and I wondered if his alcohol abuse could be tied to the horrors he experienced and the kills he may have had to make as a player in the game. How much of themselves do the tributes give up in order to survive? Is it better to die yourself or to compromise what you believe in to win and make things a little better for your district? Do the winners lives ever go back to normal? If not should they want them too since starvation and hardship seem to be the norm? Will there be a way for the winners to share whatever they have earned by winning with their district and should they even be asked to? I also wondered how the rules worked for winners- would their names continue to be put into the lottery if they were under 18 or would they be dismissed for their prior service?

I admired Katniss for stepping forward to take her sisters place and for using what she had learned poaching in the woods to keep herself alive. Peeta's enduring love was encouraging at a time when they had so little. The alliances that were formed in the arena reminded me of "Survivor" especially in that they turned on each other and had ulterior motives for teaming up. I really had an issue with the people living int the capital. If they had so much why couldn't they share to keep people in the districts from starving? Did the people from the districts ever had the chance to more to the capital or did you have to be born there? If the wealth was shared and the fences removed would there even be a cause for the people to rebel again? Some great issues were addressed in this book. Whenever a story inspires so many questions I think of it as a good book for meaningful discussions.

I will definitely be reading the next book, "Catching Fire" to see where Collins takes the story!