Hunger Games is Over - Now What?

All the books are out, all the movies are out.  But you still want more dystopian stories?  I hear you!  This is one of my favorite subgenres, so let me share with you some more dystopian futures~

(I've left out some of the more well known ones like The Maze Runner and Divergent because I figure most people already know about these!)

Eve by Anna Carey 

Where do you go when nowhere is safe? Sixteen years after a deadly virus wiped out most of Earth's population, the world is a perilous place. Eighteen-year-old Eve has never been beyond the heavily guarded perimeter of her school, where she and two hundred other orphaned girls have been promised a future as the teachers and artists of the New America. But the night before graduation, Eve learns the shocking truth about her school's real purpose--and the horrifying fate that awaits her. Fleeing the only home she's ever known, Eve sets off on a long, treacherous journey, searching for a place she can survive. Along the way she encounters Arden, her former rival from school, and Caleb, a rough, rebellious boy living in the wild. Separated from men her whole life, Eve has been taught to fear them, but Caleb slowly wins her trust . . . and her heart. He promises to protect her, but when soldiers begin hunting them, Eve must choose between true love and her life. 

The Selection by Kiera Cass

For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to escape the life laid out for them since birth. To be swept up in a world of glittering gowns and priceless jewels. To live in a palace and compete for the heart of gorgeous Prince Maxon. But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare. It means turning her back on her secret love with Aspen, who is a caste below her. Leaving her home to enter a fierce competition for a crown she doesn't want. Living in a palace that is constantly threatened by violent rebel attacks. Then America meets Prince Maxon. Gradually, she starts to question all the plans she's made for herself--and realizes that the life she's always dreamed of may not compare to a future she never imagined.

The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau

It's graduation day for sixteen-year-old Malencia Vale, and the entire Five Lakes Colony (the former Great Lakes) is celebrating. All Cia can think about--hope for--is whether she'll be chosen for The Testing, a United Commonwealth program that selects the best and brightest new graduates to become possible leaders of the slowly revitalizing post-war civilization. When Cia is chosen, her father finally tells her about his own nightmarish half-memories of The Testing. Armed with his dire warnings ("Cia, trust no one"), she bravely heads off to Tosu City, far away from friends and family, perhaps forever. Danger, romance--and sheer terror--await.

Wither by Lauren DeStefano

By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking 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 kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. 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 is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape--before her time runs out?

Gone by Michael Grant

 In the blink of an eye, everyone disappears. Gone. Except for the young. There are teens, but not one single adult. Just as suddenly, there are no phones, no internet, no television. No way to get help. And no way to figure out what's happened. Hunger threatens. Bullies rule. A sinister creature lurks. Animals are mutating. And the teens themselves are changing, developing new talents--unimaginable, dangerous, deadly powers--that grow stronger by the day. It's a terrifying new world. Sides are being chosen, a fight is shaping up. Townies against rich kids. Bullies against the weak. Powerful against powerless. And time is running out: On your birthday, you disappear just like everyone else... 

XVI by Julia Karr

At fifteen, Nina Oberon leads a pretty normal life that includes family, friends, and school. However, Nina lives in a totalitarian future society in which all girls are required to get a Governing Council-ordered "XVI" wrist tattoo on their 16th birthdays, announcing to the world that they are ready for sex. Becoming a "sex-teen" is Nina's worst fear until, right before her birthday, her mother is brutally attacked and reveals a shocking truth to Nina with her dying breaths that changes everything Nina thought she knew about her life. Now, alone but for her younger sister, Nina must try to discover who she really is, all the while staying one step ahead of her mother's killer.

A Girl Called Fearless by Catherine Linka

Avie Reveare has the normal life of a privileged teen growing up in L.A., at least as normal as any girl's life is these days. After a synthetic hormone in beef killed fifty million American women ten years ago, only young girls, old women, men, and boys are left to pick up the pieces. The death threat is past, but fathers still fear for their daughters' safety, and the Paternalist Movement, begun to "protect" young women, is taking over the choices they make.Like all her friends, Avie still mourns the loss of her mother, but she's also dreaming about college and love and what she'll make of her life. When her dad "contracts" her to marry a rich, older man to raise money to save his struggling company, her life suddenly narrows to two choices: Be trapped in a marriage with a controlling politician, or run. Her lifelong friend, student revolutionary Yates, urges her to run to freedom across the border to Canada. As their friendship turns to passion, the decision to leave becomes harder and harder. Running away is incredibly dangerous, and it's possible Avie will never see Yates again. But staying could mean death.

Proxy by Alex London

Knox was born into one of the City's wealthiest families. A Patron, he has everything a boy could possibly want--the latest tech, the coolest clothes, and a Proxy to take all his punishments. When Knox breaks a vase, Syd is beaten. When Knox plays a practical joke, Syd is forced to haul rocks. And when Knox crashes a car, killing one of his friends, Syd is branded and sentenced to death. Syd is a Proxy. His life is not his own. Then again, neither is Knox's. Knox and Syd have more in common than either would guess. So when Knox and Syd realize that the only way to beat the system is to save each other, they flee. Yet Knox's father is no ordinary Patron, and Syd is no ordinary Proxy. The ensuing cross-country chase will uncover a secret society of rebels, test both boys' resolve, and shine a blinding light onto a world of those who owe and those who pay. Some debts, it turns out, cannot be repaid.

Article 5 by Kristen Simmons

New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., have been abandoned. The Bill of Rights has been revoked, and replaced with the Moral Statutes. There are no more policeâe"instead, there are soldiers. There are no more fines for bad behaviorâe"instead, there are arrests, trials, and maybe worse. People who get arrested usually don't come back. Seventeen-year-old Ember Miller is old enough to remember that things weren't always this way. Living with her rebellious single mother, it's hard for her to forget that people weren't always arrested for reading the wrong books or staying out after dark. It's hard to forget that life in the United States used to be different. Ember has perfected the art of keeping a low profile. She knows how to get the things she needs, like food stamps and hand-me-down clothes, and how to pass the random home inspections by the military. Her life is as close to peaceful as circumstances allow. That is, until her mother is arrested for noncompliance with Article 5 of the Moral Statutes. And one of the arresting officers is none other than Chase Jenningsâe¦the only boy Ember has ever loved.

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Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Fifteen-year-old Tally's eerily harmonious, postapocalyptic society gives extreme makeovers to teens on their sixteenth birthdays, supposedly conferring equivalent evolutionary advantages to all. When a top-secret agency threatens to leave Tally ugly forever unless she spies on runaway teens, she agrees to infiltrate the Smoke, a shadowy colony of refugees from the tyranny of physical perfection. At first baffled and revolted by the rebels' choices, Tally eventually bonds with one of their leaders and begins to question the validity of institutionalized mutilation--especially as it becomes clear that the government's surgeons may be doing more than cosmetic nipping and tucking.

Movie Monday - Wither

Another week, another book into a movie!  This week it's Wither by Lauren Destefano.  Loooove this book.  Haven't read the sequel yet.  Anyhoooo, it's been optioned to become a movie by Prospect Park and Violet House.  Being optioned doesn't necessarily mean that it will become a movie, but it does mean that this studio owns the right to make it into a movie for a certain amount of time, usually 2 years.  But I'm really hoping!

March's New Books - Part 7

 Partials by Dan Wells

Check the Catalog

The human race is all but extinct after a war with Partials—engineered organic beings identical to humans—has decimated the population. Reduced to only tens of thousands by RM, a weaponized virus to which only a fraction of humanity is immune, the survivors in North America have huddled together on Long Island while the Partials have mysteriously retreated. The threat of the Partials is still imminent, but, worse, no baby has been born immune to RM in more than a decade. Our time is running out. 

Fever by Lauren DeStefano

Check the Catalog

In a future where genetic engineering has cured humanity of all diseases and defects but has also produced a virus that kills all females by age twenty and all males by the age twenty-five, teenaged Rhine escapes her forced marriage and journeys back to New York to find her twin brother.

Gate 7 volume 1 by CLAMP

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A brand new manga series from CLAMP begins here!  An innocent sightseeing trip to Kyoto opens up a magical realm to shy high schooler Chikahito Takamoto.  Visiting a legendary shrine, Chikahito stumbles into the mystical world of Hana and her comrades-and his immunity to their powers leads them to believe that he's no ordinary awkward teenager!  Protecting our world from violent supernatural creatures, Hana and her team welcome the confused Chikahito-who isn't quite sure that he wants to be caught in the middle of their war.

DYSTOPIAN FICTION

Do you like books about the future, but not a very happy future?  I'm thinking about books like The Hunger Games, Divergent, or Delirium.  This genre of books are called Dystopian Fiction.  Dystopia was a word that was made up to be the opposite of utopia, which means a perfect society.  In dystopian fiction the characters are often leading fearful lives because either social or technological trends have lead to a corrupt or degraded society.  Things might also be bad from deprivation, (running out of water, oil, food, etc) oppression from the government, or terror.

These books are crazy popular right now, so I made a display of all the dystopian fiction we have here at DPL.  The books are on the mobile shelf right next to the YA biographies.  You can browse them there.  I'm also going to post my annotated list of the titles here for your browsing pleasure!  The list will also be on the website if you want to go find it there as well.  Enjoy!

Novels

Bumped by Megan McCafferty
 In 2036 New Jersey, teens are expected to become wives and mothers or high-priced Surrogettes for couples made infertile by a virus, 16 year old twins Melody and Harmony find in one another courage to believe they have choices.

 The Compound by S.A. Bodeen
After his parents, two sisters, and he have spent 6 years in a vast underground compound built by his wealthy father to protect them from a nuclear holocaust, 15 year old Eli, whose twin brother and grandmother were left behind, discovers that his father has perpetrated a monstrous hoax on them all.

Enclave by Ann Aguirre
Ann Aguirre  In a post-apocalyptic future, 15 year old Deuce, a loyal Huntress, brings back meat while avoiding Freaks outside, but when she is partnered with outsider Fade, she beings to see the ways of the Elders may be wrong- and dangerous.

Fearless by Tim Lott
Tim Lott  In the future, girls labeled 'juvies' or 'mindcrips' are taken from their families and sent to the prison-like City Community Faith School, but Little Fearless decides to break out, and try to free the girls from their miserable captivity.

Feed by M.T. Anderson
M.T. Anderson In a future where most people have computer implants in their heads to control their environment, a boy meets an unusual girl who is in serious trouble.

 House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
In a future where clones are despised, Matt is the young clone of El Patron, a 142 year old drug lord living between Mexico and the United States.

Human.4 by Mike Lancaster
Twenty-first century 14 year old Kyle was hypnotized when humantiy was upgrades to 1.0 and he, imcompatible with the new technology, exposes its terrifying impact in a tape-recording found by the superhumans of the future.

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
After being interrogated for days by Homeland Security in teh aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Fransico, 17 year old Marcus, released inot what is now a police state, decides to use his expertise in computer hacking to set things right.

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi
In a futuristic world, teenaged Nailer scavenges copper wiring from grounded oil tankers for a living, but when he finds a beached clipper ship with a girl in the wreckage, he has to decide if he should strip the ship for its wealth or rescue the girl.

Test by William Sleator
 In the security obsessed elitist UnitedStates of  the near future, where a standardized test determines each person's entire life, a powerful man runs a corrupt empire until 17 year old Ann and other students take the lead by boycotting the test.

Those That Wake by Jesse Karp
When a consumer driven future society runs amok, unleashing near cosmic forces, Mal and Laura search for their families only to find that something or someone has erased them from the memories of everyone they have ever known.

 Unidentified by Rae Mariz
 In a futuristic alternative school set in a schopping mall where video game playing students are observed and used by corporate sponsors for market research, Katey "Kid" Dade struggles to figure out where she fits in and whether she even wants to.

Unwind by Neal Shusterman
 In a future world where those between the ages of 13 and 18 can have their lives "unwound" and their body parts harvested for use by others, three teens go to extreme lengths to uphold their beliefs-- and perhaps save their own lives.







Series
(Series name - Author - Titles)

Atherton - Patrick Carman - The House of Power, Rivers of Fire, & Dark Planet
Edgar secretly climbs the wall separating the three worlds of Atherton and discovers that they are beginning to collapse.  Atherton is not what it seems, but something far more dangerous.

Birthmarked - Caragh O'Brien - Birthmarked & Prized (coming Nov. 2011)
In a future world baked dry and divided into those inside the wall and those outside it, 16 year old midwife Gaia Stone is forced into a difficult choice when her parents are arrested and taken into the city.

Carbon Diaries - Saci Lloyd - Carbon Diaries 2015 & Carbon Diaries 2017
 In 2015, England becomes the first to introduce carbon dioxide rationing to combat climate change, 16 year old Laura documents the first year as her family struggles.

Chaos Walking - Patrick Ness - The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer, & Monsters of Men
Pursued by power hungry Prentis and minister Aaron, Todd and Viola set out across New World searching for answers about his colony's past and seeking a way to warn the ship bringing hopeful settlers from Old World.

Chemical Garden - Lauren DeStefano - Wither & Fever (coming Feb. 2012)
After modern science turns every human into a genetic time bomb with men dying at 25 and women at 20, girls are kidnapped and married off in order to repopulate the world.

The Declaration - Gemma Malley - The Declaration, The Resistance, & Legacy
 In 2140 England, drugs enable people to live forever and children are illegal, teenaged Anna, an obedient "Surplus" training to become a servant, discovers her parents are trying to find her.

Delirium - Lauren Oliver - Delirium & Pandemonium (coming Mar. 2012)
Lena looks forward to receiving the government-mandated cure that prevents the delirium of love and leads to a safe, predictable, and happy life, until 95 days before her treatment, she falls in love.

Divergent - Veronica Roth - Divergent & Insurgent (coming May 2012)
In a future Chicago, 16 year old Beatrice must choose among five factions to define her identity for the rest of her life, a decision made more difficult when she discovers that she does not fit into any one group, and that her society is not perfect after all.

Dustlands - Moira Young - Blood Red Road
 In a distant future, 18 year old Lugh is kidnapped, and while his twin sister Saba and 9 year old Emmi are trailing him they are captured too, and taken to brutal Hopetown, where Saba is forced to be a cage fighter.

Ember - Jeanne Duprau - The City of Ember, The People of Sparks, The Prophet of Yonwood, & The Diamond of Darkhold
In the year 241, 12 year old Lina trades jobs on Assignment Day to be a Messenger to run to new places in her decaying but beloved city, perhaps even to glimpse Unknown Regions.

Exodus - Julie Bertanga - Exodus & Zenith
In 2100, the island of Wing is about to become covered by water, 15 year old Mara discovers New World sky cities that are safe from the storms and rising waters, and convinces her people to travel there.

Forest of Hands and Teeth - Carrie Ryan - Forest of Hands and Teeth, The Dead Tossed Waves, & The Dark and Hollow Places
Orphaned Mary seeks life, love, and knowledge of what lies beyond her walled village and the surrounding forest, where dwell aggressive flesh-eating people who were once dead.

The Giver Trilogy - Lois Lowry - The Giver, Gathering Blue, & The Messenger
 At age 12 Jonas, a young boy from a seemingly  utopian futuristic world, is singled out to receive special training from The Giver, who alone holds the memories of true joy and pain.

Gone - Michael Grant - Gone, Hunger, Lies, Plague, & Fear (coming Apr 2012)
 In a small town on the coast of Cali, everyone over 14 suddenly disappears, setting up a battle between public and private school students, and those with and without "The Power."

Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins - The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, & Mockingjay
In a future North America, the rulers of Panem maintain control through an annual televised survival competition pitting young people from the 12 districts against each other, 16 year old Katniss' skills are put to the test when she takes her sister's place.

 

Hungry City Chronicles - Philip Reeve - Mortal Engines, Predator's Gold, Infernal Devices, Darkling Plain, Fever Crumb, Web of Air, & Scrivener's Moon
In the distant future, cities move about and consume smaller towns. A 15 year old apprentice is pushed out of London by his mentor and must seek answers in the Out Country.

Incarceron - Catherine Fisher - Incarceron & Sapphique
 To free herself from an upcoming arrange marriage, Claudia, the daughter of the Warden of Incarceron, a futuristic prison with a mind of its own, decides to help a young prisoner escape.

The Jenna Saga - Mary Pearson - The Adoration of Jenna Fox & The Fox Inheritance (coming Aug 2011)
 In the not too distant future, biotechnological advances have made synthetic bodies and brains possible but illegal, 17 year old Jenna is recovering from a serious accident when she learns a startling secret about her existance.

The Last Survivors - Susan Beth Pfeffer - Life as We Knew It, The Dead and the Gone, & This World We Live In
Through journal entries 16 year old Miranda describes her family's struggle to survive after a meteor hits the moon, causing worldwide tsunamis, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions.

Lorien Legacies - Pittacus Lore - I am Number Four & The Power of Six
 In rural Ohio, friendships and a beautiful girl prove distracting to a 15 year old who has hidden on Earth for 10 years, waiting to develop the powers he will need to rejoin the other six surviving Garde members and fight the Mogadorians who destroyed their planet, Lorien

Matched - Ally Condie - Matched & Crossed (coming Nov. 2011)
Cassia has always followed the Society without question. So when Xander's face is displayed as her Match, she knows that they are perfect mates. However, Ky's face also flashed on the screen for a second. Now Cassia can't stop thinking about him, even if the Society says it was a glitch.

Maze Runner - James Dashner - Maze Runner, Scorch Trials, & The Death Cure (coming Oct. 2011)
16 year old Thomas wakes up with no memory in the middle of a maze and realizes that he must work with the community in which he finds himself to escape.

Skinned - Robin Wasserman - Skinned, Crashed, & Wired
Lia Kahn's wealthy family decide to save her from dying by transplanting her brain into a mechanical body.

Uglies - Scott Westerfeld - Uglies, Pretties, Specials, & Extras
Just before their 16th birthdays, when they will be transformed into beauties whose only job is to have a great time, Tally's best friend runs away and Tally must find her and turn her in, or never become pretty at all.

XVI - Julia Karr - XVI & Truth (coming Jan. 2012)
Nina lives in a totalitarian future society in which all girls are required to get "XVI" tattooed on their wrist on their 16th birthdays, announcing to the world that they are ready for sex.  This is Nina's worst fear until right before her birthday her mother is brutally attacked and reveals a shocking truth to Nina.