Things Dystopian Novels Have Taught Me

Dear blog,
I'm one of those people who worries about the end of the world. A lot.  I am also one of those people who reads a lot of dystopian novels, perhaps as a way of preparing myself for the future state of mankind.
Thankfully there are a lot of books that serve as an entirely handy guide to surviving rising sea levels/nuclear kersplosions/creepy governments/insert other grim demise of humanity here. 
Here are some of the words of wisdom that I think are particularly essential, from some of my favourite novels of the dystopic variety.
Be warned: There are a few spoilers here, so proceed with caution.

Life as we Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

You need food.
And water.

If you're not sure if you've got enough, obtain more of these things.

The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Cities are the worst place to be in an apocalypse.

For the love of God, don't go in a lift when the electricity system in your building is unreliable.
No matter how many inhalers you have, they still cannot ultimately save you from your asthma.

Gone by Michael Grant

Kids are very creepy when they want to be.
Do not live near a nuclear power plant.
You are probably a superhero mutant freak waiting to happen.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Life sucks.
Ultimately there is no hope for humanity.
You are either going to die or go slightly crazy on an island. But probably both.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Wasps are the most efficient way of killing off your enemies. But make sure you're out of the way first.
Despite the fact your government is evil and corrupt, there are always plenty of shallow hair stylists you can hang around with to lighten your mood.
Your dead villains will come back to haunt you as mutant wolves. 

The Carbon Diaries 2015 by Saci Lloyd
Being an English teenager in the years to come will be pretty harsh.
Carry a torch with you at all times.
Keep pigs.  They're amazing.

The Declaration by Gemma Malley
There will always be a slightly too-good-to-be-true boy available to sweep you off your feet and tell you how bad the world is.
Life's not fair and everyone hates you.
There are probably a ton of revelatory secrets about you/your family that you do not know.

Siberia by Ann Halam
Your cute little critter companions may be the one thing that will save your life when you're on an epic trek across a bitterly arctic Europe.
Sweden, the place roughly described as Sloe's ultimate destination, is the place to be (Also, I have proof, because I went to Sweden when I was eleven and it was amazing).
You should listen to everything your mother tells you.

Riding Tycho by Jan Mark

Knitting gets boring very quickly if you have no Ravelry to supply you with fresh exciting patterns, and you are eternally doomed to knit stockings all your life.

Your friends are superficial, two-faced and not worth your time.
Especially when there are Welsh singers available who can open your eyes to the wider world.

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

See The Declaration.
Don't sweat it if you're worried about your authoritarian government stopping you from having a good time; as a general rule, you should be able to sneak out to the country for a party.
You need a motorbike for the ultimate escape to be achieved.

Exodus by Julie Bertagna
If you're unsure if you live on high enough ground to escape the rising sea levels, move higher up.
Do not eat raw fish in unclean waters.
If possible, befriend or fall in love with the son of one of the most powerful men in your city.

Zenith by Julie Bertagna
Greenland is the place to be when the sea levels rise.
Do not get pregnant when you're having a hard enough time fighting for your own survival.
There is always a light at the end of the tunnel.

How to Make a Packet of Minstrels Last the Length of a Novel

Dear blog,
Now for something completely different.
 To explain: The other day I was reading a list put together by the food company Innocent about how to make a bowl of popcorn last the whole length of a film.I was thinking about this, and how similar it is to those times you sit down with a novel and a packet of minstrels*, but then have devoured them all by the time you’re at page 50. 
I am going to remedy this for you, readers.  Here's a guideline; depending on what you're reading, certain events should indicate how many Minstrels you should eat and when.
Note: some packets of Minstrels are quite small.  Some novels are like 400 pages.  This is why I'm referring to the packets of Minstrels that you can get at the cinema, which are a little bigger.
Another note: Eating a packet of cinema-sized minstrels in one go is discouraged.  It will probably make you feel sick and therefore ruin the whole experience.  It takes me a few days to read most books, so this is a sufficient time to eat a packet of minstrels.
Anyway.

If I Stay- eat two every time the word “cello”, “guitar” or “band” comes up.

The Princess and the Captain- Eat two every time you wish Orpheus was real.

Forbidden- Save all the minstrels for the end, and then devour them all to comfort yourself.

This is All- Eat three every time you feel enlightened, learn something new or have gained new insight into something.

Looking for Alaska- three every time Alaska is drunk or two every time there’s a gorgeous profound quietly beautiful quote.

Becoming Bindy Mackenzie- have two every time you’re all, “Pure genius. Jaclyn Moriarty is one.”

The Broken Bridge- Eat three every time you’re like, “Why does Phillip Pullman need to write those sweeping epic trilogies when, fantastic as they are, he can write such an engaging, refreshing but simplistic YA book about a sixteen-year-old girl?”

Tokyo- Eat one every time the writing style, which tries so hard, too hard, to sound like the POV of an eighteen-year-old boy, makes you cringe.

Anything by Haruki Murakami- two minstrels every time you fangirl squee.

The Hunger Games or Catching Fire- Four every time someone dies or is brutally beaten.

Notre-Dame de Paris (okay it's not really a YA book, but I feel like it deserves a mention as one of my favourite books of all time)- Read the book first, saving all the minstrels until the end. When you’re done, melt them, pour them between the pages and then eat the book.

Anthem (again, not a YA book, but.) - Two every time there’s some mention of “self”, “identity”, or “ego”.

Twilight- two every time Edward says something along the lines of “But Bella, it’s not safe for us to be together!” or half a minstrel every time Bella describes his porcelain skin, smouldering eyes and the like.

Crank or Glass- Two every time Kristina/Bree smokes or abuses some sort of illegal substance.

Eunoia (again, not YA, but every poetry lover should read it)- three every time you’re like “Dayum, Christian Bök has a way with words.”

any of the Ichigo Mashimaro volumes- one every time you laugh, snort, or fall out of your chair in a fit of giggles.

*or Maltesers, crisps, smarties, a bar of chocolate or some of those Tesco mini brownies. 

Five challenge- Great Series

Dear Blog,

today the subject of the Persnickety Snark FIVE challenge is great series I've read this year.   I'll mention that most of these are all the UK release dates, seeing as confusion can occasionally ensue when I mention books that have come out this year in the UK but came out last year in the Land of the Free.  So, in no particular order:

GONE by Michael Grant
2010 release: Lies

I've read the first three books in these series (which is going to be six books, I believe).  They're all fantastic;  Disturbed, disturbing, and always, always exciting.  One of those series that's great fun to imagine what it would be like if you were one of the characters.

DEAR AMERICA by various authors

2010 release: The Fences Between Us

I have to include Dear America because it's been one of my favourite series since I was nine, and it got relaunched this year. Booyah.  So even though I have potentially outgrown them, they are some of my ultimate comfort reads. 

THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins

2010 release: Mockingjay

perhaps this could be considered cheating, in that I've only read the first two books, but the third is the one that came out this year. Well, I don't care, because The Hunger Games and Catching Fire are both, despite a mere handful of flaws, worthy of a mention.

CHAOS WALKING by  Patrick Ness

2010 release: Monsters of Men

Sci-fi setting? Check.  Unique hero? check. Fantastic heroine? check.  Complex antagonists? Check. Likeable supporting characters? Check. Fast-paced plots? Check.  Gripping opening? Check. Intriguing sequel? Check. Stunning conclusion? Check.  What more do you want from a trilogy? 

TRANSLUCENT by Kazuhiro Okamoto

2010 release: Volume 4

To my mind, Translucent grabs the top spot in any Underrated Shojo Manga Ever list.  It's a will-be quintet- Volume 4 was released in August, and volume 5 is yet to come- and everyone who claims to like shojo manga should read it, even though nobody I've spoken to who claims to like shojo manga has read it.  What's not to like?  Are the characters not realistic enough for you?  Not enough action going on in the utterly charming romance?  Pah. 

Well, that's all for me this evening.  I made a rash promise to a friend I'd send her the first hundred pages of my NaNoWriMo novel for Christmas, and none of it is edited.  So all for now. 

Review: Catching Fire

Dear Blog,
I finally got round to reading Catching Fire this weekend, so, well, here's my review.

Summary (from Goodreads): Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has won the annual Hunger Games with fellow district tribute Peeta Mellark. But it was a victory won by defiance of the Capitol and their harsh rules. Katniss and Peeta should be happy. After all, they have just won for themselves and their families a life of safety and plenty. But there are rumors of rebellion among the subjects, and Katniss and Peeta, to their horror, are the faces of that rebellion. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge.

Review: I put off reading this for a while after I finished the first book in the trilogy.  This is because I don't want to read these two and then have an epic wait for the release of Mockingjay. Eventually I could do nothing but give in and read Catching Fire.
I wasn't sure what to expect when I first started.  I mean- the Games were in the first book.  What would happen in the next two?  The answer is, well, more action, more passion, more danger, and more excitement than before. 

There's much more romance in this book than in the first.  I suppose I can't write a review without saying something about my Peeta/Gale preference. While reading these books I keep changing- when Katniss is with Gale I want them to be together for the rest of their lives, but when Katniss and Peeta are fighting for their lives in the Games, I was thinking, "Yep, Peeta is the one for Katniss".  Now having read Catching Fire I now know that my heart (as well as Katniss') belongs to Peeta. How could you not like somebody who saves your life so many times? And is quick-witted and funny and charming and clever and awesome in every aspect of the word?!

Katniss is as brilliant a protagonist as ever.  She's smart, quick-witted, and about a thousand times braver than I would  be if I was in her situation.   It's a tricky balance of making the protagonist strong enough to survive and realistic enough in their...what's the word?  Youth?  I'm not sure.  But we need protagonists to be like us, the readers. Also, I take my hat off to her for not just spending the whole book going, "oh no, two people love me!" (*cough* the Twilight Saga *cough*).  I guess there were more important things at stake.

Speaking of the important things at stake. Catching Fire is a much more sinister story than The Hunger Games, in which most of the terror evolved around the arena.  But in Catching Fire you realise that even outside the Games arena there's no escape from the fear and horror, as everything seems equally sinister in the rest of Panem. If I was Katniss I would definitely have run as far away as I could from Panem, even if I didn't really know what was out there.   That's because I am a little coward and Katniss is not.  And of course the fate of the Districts kind of rests in her and Peeta's hands and if I was mysteriously sucked into the book, I would merely be a small unecessary character somewhere (I'm thinking District 11 because I live in the country) who wouldn't even be mentioned.

Now then.  I'm not sure if what I'm going to say next is a spoiler or not.  Perhaps if you haven't read the book you ought to skip to the Summary at the end of the entry.  If you have, or you aren't planning to read Catching Fire (to the latter people, READ IT NOW), then just read on.

Paragraph That May Or May Not Be A Spoiler- This is probably because it was the second time, but when Katniss, Peeta et. al re-entered the arena it didn't seem quite as terrifying as in the first book.  I was just like, "Okay, they're back in the arena again." And although what happened in the arena was scary, it wasn't as heart-poundingly "what is this horrible place?  why are we here?" as in The Hunger Games. Perhaps because in Catching Fire the reader understands and knows the answers to these questions.
The scenes in the Games seemed kind of rushed, like it was only set over about 50 pages or so. I know it wasn't, but the whole thing is over in about two days and so it did seem slightly rushed and hurried.  And I didn't really get the scene where they all broke out of the arena.  Speaking of which- surely they can see onto the other side of the forcefield that guards the arena?  What divides the arena from the rest of the world is never properly explained.
End Of Paragraph That May Or May Not Be A Spoiler.

Now then.  The ending.  This is the cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers and will leave you screaming, "WHY?! Curse you, Suzanne Collins, for leaving us hanging in such a way!"  Not that this is a bad thing, of course.  The cliffhanger is excellent and I believe that Mockingjay ought to get a midnight release à la Harry Potter (in my opinion the Hunger Games trilogy is better), just so that we can find out what happens after the last sentence in Catching Fire.  I wander if there will be ARCs of it...if so, I must definitely get my hands on one.

Summary: awesome, awesome, awesome, and I jump up and down in my seat just thinking about the release of Mockingjay.  Rating: 5. 

Review: The Hunger Games

Dear Blog,

I know the title of this review probably sounds pretty silly, seeing as the rest of the book blogosphere is gearing up for the release of Mockingjay this August.  Having not read the Hunger Games, I decided to see what all the fuss was about. 

Before I start: I don't like the UK cover (the one on this review).  If only because I don't like books with pictures of the characters on the front, especially if they look animated.  Like  this one does.  *shall be ordering US editions of the next two books*.

Anyway.  This will be a  relatively short review because my Russian homework summons.

Summary (from Amazon.co.uk): Katniss Everdeen is a survivor. She has to be; she's representing her District, number 12, in the 74th Hunger Games in the Capitol, the heart of Panem, a new land that rose from the ruins of a post-apocalyptic North America. To punish citizens for an early rebellion, the rulers require each district to provide one girl and one boy, 24 in all, to fight like gladiators in a futuristic arena. The event is broadcast like reality TV, and the winner returns with wealth for his or her district. With clear inspiration from Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and the Greek tale of Theseus, Collins has created a brilliantly imagined dystopia, where the Capitol is rich and the rest of the country is kept in abject poverty, where the poor battle to the death for the amusement of the rich. Impressive world-building, breathtaking action and clear philosophical concerns make this volume, the beginning of a planned trilogy, as good as The Giver and more exciting.

Review: I hear they're making this into a film. I'm not sure if that's actually true or not, it could just be a rumour.  Don't take my word for it.  If they did, I wouldn't be very happy, but that's just me being picky-the characters will look all wrong, they'll miss out chunks of the story, hideous media tie-in editions will become the norm, etc. etc.  But, well, you can see why they're making it into a film.  It would make a good film.  The Hunger Games would make a good anything.

At first I wasn't so sure if it was worth all the hype.  The first hundred pages or so weren't as exciting as I had expected them to be.  Unlike Michael Grant's Gone, (which has a similar idea: teens battling it out in an enclosed space) I don't think the action begins right on the first page.  It's interesting, giving some background to the nation of Panem, Katniss' life in District 12, her friends and family, the preparation for the Games and so on. All these things are important, so you have to  read it to get to the heart-stopping part, i.e the rest of the book. It's only when the Hunger Games of the title actually get going that the excitement begins. 

But when it does?  Wow!   You can't stop reading.  And when you do tear yourself away to attend to far more unimportant matters like eating and sleeping, you're still thinking about it. I kept having dreams about it (In one of which, I was hiding up a tree about to drop a tracker-jacker nest on the Career Tributes [rich children who spend their whole lives in training for the Hunger Games], but the nest was stuck to me and the tracker-jackers flew out and stung me to death).

The idea, you can tell, is influenced muchly from other books.  Reading the synopsis, Logan's Run, Lord of the Flies, Gone, and The Other Side of the Island spring to mind.  But reading the book itself it sounds wonderfully original, and suddenly Big Brother seems innocent, happy and tranquil.  You'll not look at such reality TV in the same way again.

Well, then, what's not to like? The characters? It's sort of hard in the first person to make all the supporting characters well-rounded and three-dimensional, but Suzanne Collins manages it.  The writing? It's written as every action-type novel should be: spare but descriptive. The pace?  Well, you need the first 100 pages or so, the ending isn't rushed nor dragged out, so that's all OK. The ending? It's not exactly a cliffhanger, alas, but it leaves much space for the next two books. Overall, good job Suzanne.  Thumbs-up all round. 

Summary: I seem to be the last blogger in the universe to have read it.  Hopefully everybody else has read it before I have, and though it's not the best book I've read,  it's essential reading for teenagers and adults alike.  Rating: 4.5

*gets Mockingjay countdown for side of blog*

*rushes to library to order Catching Fire*

In My Mailbox (5)

Dear Blog,
Before I start, I guess I should say: Happy mother's day! to all the Mothers on the other side of the pond (in the sceptr'd isle we celebrate it in March). 
It's IMM time.  Hosted as always by The Story Siren. 

IN MY MAILBOX/IN THE POST

The 3 books I bought in In My Mailbox 2 (An Ocean Apart, a Light in the Storm and With Nothing but our Courage)have finally arrived from the US.  Yay!

BOUGHT

Nothing.  *is poor again*

BORROWED

I've been borrowing heaps from the library lately.  I know I shouldn't because I've got enough to read at home, but oh well.

The Ultimate Teen Book Guide (a new edition's just come out but I could only find the 2007 one at my local library.  Oh well.  It's still got a heap of books I haven't heard of)

The Infinite Wisdom of Harriet Rose

Unwind

The Year the Gypsies Came

Summary: quite a good week.  What about you?