Ignorant Historian

What kind of Hunger Games fan would I be if I didn’t talk about the release of Mockingjay today?  Perhaps you’re like me and waiting to get a copy from the library (it’ll still be brand new, but I don’t have to pay for it).  Or perhaps you’ve stayed up all night reading it (don’t spoil it for me!) and you’re looking for something else to read.

So, what should you read if you like The Hunger Games?  In other words, what are my favorite dystopian/adventure books?

In no particular order (too hard!):

1. The Giver, Gathering Blue and Messenger

I read The Giver when it came out and really enjoyed it.  As an adult, I realized that there was a companion novel, Gathering Blue, and later realized that there was a 3rd.  I wish I had read all 3 back to back as I had a hard time following the strings that connect the first two to the third.  If you haven’t read these (or have only read The Giver) I recommend them thoroughly!

2.  Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde

This is the first book of a series (with no knowing when book 2 will be out as Fforde has several series going on right now).  To be honest, I wasn’t sure that this was dystopian until the end, and I loved that (sorry to ruin that).  In classic Ffordian-style, this is full of plays-on-words and ridiculous mimicry of aspects of our society (think Dr. Seuss’s The Butter Battle Book for adults).  Who would have thought of classifying people by which color they can see (and how much of it)?

3. The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

I really didn’t like this book at first.  It’s written in a kind of futuristic slang that really bugged me.  But after a hundred pages, I forgot that and was entranced.  A great idea executed well: a group of settlers on an alien planet are troubled by the fact that everything a male thinks is heard aloud by everyone.  This is actually Book 1 of the Chaos Walking trilogy, but since Book 3 isn’t out until September, I thought I’d delay reading book 2 until then.

4. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Okay, so this is definitely science fiction, but don’t let that scare you off at all.  Like Hunger Games, it tells of a society that exploits children, this time not for entertainment, but to train them to save Earth from invading aliens (stay with me!).  Just try it, okay?

5.  Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden

My all-time favorite book as a teen.  What happens when a group of teenagers returns from a holiday in the bush (gotta love the Australian setting!) to find that their town–indeed, their whole country–has been overtaken by another country?  It’s the first in a series, but easily stands alone.

6. Genesis by Bernard Beckett

This is a short little book that’s more like a long short story.  But though it can be read in one sitting, it’ll keep you thinking for a while.  Telling you anything more would just be doing you a disservice, so just read it, k?

So those are my recommendations to you, fellow Hunger Games-lovers.  Any more recommendations?

In light of tomorrow’s release of Mockingjay, I will be posting on related topics today and tomorrow.

I’ve always been a fan of dystopian novels long before I knew the term “dystopian.”  I remember reading The Giver in middle school and being blown away.  1984 was easily my favorite assigned read in high school.  Recently I can’t get enough of the genre (though there are more coming out than I could reasonably read).

I think what I appreciate about these books is their depiction of the way that we sinners make a mess out of things.  Without God, that’s where we’re left.

Lately, though, I’ve notice that a few of the recent releases stray from the dystopian theme, perhaps.

Can a dystopian novel end optimistically and still be dystopian?

I mean, even Hunger Games ends in a seemingly impossible way (trying to be spoiler free!)…though we still don’t know how the trilogy will end.

Under the Dome (which I don’t mind spoiling because I think Stephen King should have been edited down from 1000 pages to no more than 600) ends simply and optimistically.

Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Last Survivors trilogy is what got me thinking about this subject originally.

But on the other hand, a few years ago I disliked The Road because there WAS no hope in the end.  So either I’m a hypocrite, or my tastes have changed.  Or maybe I allowed my dislike of Cormac McCarthy’s style to color my view of his ending.

I wonder if we want dystopian books to end happily, just like our movies.  Can we not handle the dark truth of a tale like The Picture of Dorian Gray today?

Thoughts?

Photo by mattsabo17