"Enclave:Razorland Series, Bk 1" by Ann Aguirre~ Fabulous Dystopian!

Published by:  Feiwel & Friends

Pages:  272

Genre:  YA fiction, Literature & Fiction, Dystopian

Overview :

New York City has been decimated by war and plague, and most of civilization has migrated to underground enclaves, where life expectancy is no more than the early 20's. When Deuce turns 15, she takes on her role as a Huntress, and is paired with Fade, a teenage Hunter who lived Topside as a young boy. When she and Fade discover that the neighboring enclave has been decimated by the tunnel monsters—or Freaks—who seem to be growing more organized, the elders refuse to listen to warnings.

And when Deuce and Fade are exiled from the enclave, the girl born in darkness must survive in daylight, in the ruins of a city whose population has dwindled to a few dangerous gangs. As the two are guided by Fade’s long-ago memories, they face dangers, and feelings, unlike any they’ve ever known.

The Dame Gives Her Opinion :

That "overview" barely makes the cut in telling you about this extraordinary dystopian novel.  Post-apocalyptic and chilling in scope, this story has a fearsome quality to it that reminds me of an old Stephen King novel.  This isn't just your ordinary YA fiction...it's much more.  It thoroughly kept me seated, I can tell you!

Some of Ms Aguirre's descriptions could make your blood run cold.  I actually cringed at visions of the horrifying Freaks in their "semi-human" condition, eating their own dead!  All I could see was skin falling off of them and gore landing on me...I mean, Deuce, run!!

Characterization was stellar in this book.  From the main characters of Deuce, the female Hunter; her hunting companion and love interest, Fade, who had come experienced and "wild" through "the Tunnel" from the topside; to the strange Elders and keepers of the Enclave; this book was so fascinating to me.  I loved the idea that the elders of the protected underground Enclave were no older than their mid-20's... Their ideas of a society, safety, food resources and reproduction of "Brats" were simplistic, but worked for them as they planned for an unknown future.  Their fears; however, led them to crumble under pressure. 

Absorbing book.  It had me from the beginning. There was no apparent sense that the writing was catering to the too young.  Ann Aguirre respects her readers and doesn't write down to them.  Her work is vastly more captivating than some of the other dystopian novels for YA readers today. The subtle building of the relationship between Deuce and Fade was more engaging than a crush-and-silly- act.  The coming of age and growing into responsibility of Deuce was eased into, and that much more powerful for the mechanism chosen. 

This book is a great read.  Interesting, harrowing, fun to read...enjoyable and thought-provoking.  First book in the series.  I'm ready for Book 2.

5 stars for a strong post-apocalyptic novel that adults will enjoy, as well as young adults.

Deborah/TheBookishDame



Read More

I'm Parched After Reading~ "The Water Wars" by Cameron Stracher

Published by:  Sourcebooks Fire

Young Adult Fiction

Pages:  240

Book Summary :

Hundreds of millions of people have already died, and, millions more will soon fall--victims of disease, hunger, and war.  The rivers have dried up, the polar caps have melted, and drinkable water is now in the hands of the powerful few.  There are fines for wasting it and prison sentences for exceeding the quotas.

But Kai didn't seem to care about any of this.  He stood in the open road drinking water from a plastic cup, then spilled the remaining drops into the dirt.  He didn't go to school, and he traveled with armed guards.  Kai claimed he knew a secret--something the government was keeping from us...

And then he was gone.  Vanished in the middle of the night.  Was he kidnapped?  Did he flee?  Is he alive or dead?  There are no clues, only questions.  And no one can guess the lengths to which they will go to keep him silent.  We have to find him--and the truth--before it's too late for all of us.

The Bookish Dame's Review:

Cameron Stracher has an important message to give us about the dire need to recognize the probable shortage of water.  Sadly, he was not able to deliver it in his young adult fiction.

"The Water Wars" simply falls short of being a good book for YA's, or even adults interested in YA fiction.  Why?  Because 90% of the book is interior dialog by the narrator and female protagonist, Vera.

And, because the story is so laden with names of environmental and waring factions and government agencies that one becomes lost in which is which.  And, because of the lack of engaging dialog, warmth of character interaction, and development, and introduction of semi-engaging but too splintered "heros," the book fails to keep us involved. 

I understand, as I mentioned above, the importance of Stracher's message, but this is probably not the medium to use to get it across.  Or, perhaps a closer investigation of YA fiction would bring him more in line with what interests and would hold the attention of readers.  I fear with Mr. Stracher's impressive resume and education (Amherst, Harvard Law and Iowa Writers' Workshop...and he's a media lawyer) someone's been too intimidated to be honest about his writing for YA's.

In this case, I have to give this book a 2 stars.  I cannot recommend it.  I had difficulty getting through it, myself, and found it dull.

Deborah/TheBookishDame

Read More

Revisiting "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy~ In light of Jaycee Dugard...

Book Information and Summary:
NATIONAL BESTSELLERPULITZER PRIZE WINNERNational Book Critic's Circle Award FinalistA New York Times Notable BookOne of the Best Books of the YearThe Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, The Denver Post, The Kansas City Star, Los Angeles Times, New York, People, Rocky Mountain News, Time, The Village Voice, The Washington Post
The searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece.
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food-—and each other.The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.
Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
*This overview taken from Barnes & Noble booksite.

A Couple of Trailers:

(This first one's volume is sketchy...sorry)

My Review:

In keeping with Cormac McCarthy's style of writing, "The Road" is another masterpiece that causes us to look into the darkest moments of the human soul. It is the razor's edge of love and relationships that McCarthy is interested in. It's the "thing" that makes us survive...the non-descript element that keeps a human spirit going after all else seems lost and useless, and death may seem the better avenue to peace and deliverance from hardships.

"The Road" is a story that examines this spirit of mankind that causes some to stare into the face of defeat and inhumanity, and to contain the longing; not just the will, but the longing, to live on. Some seem to have this unchangeable belief in the goodness of mankind and creation.

"The Road," is a study of those who have the gift of endurance of heart. Some of those who have survived the most horrendous trials, both physical and psychological in history, share this nebulous quality of a pure, childlike heart that continues to hold on to hope in the face of the contrary. It is a hope that's anchored in a love that is unshakable; and, it seems to me that love nearly always has a link to another person.

What makes a survivor? When I saw and heard the recent interview by Diane Sawyer of Jaycee Dugard, I knew I was staring into the face of that pure, childlike, believing person/survivor. She represents to me that quality of man/womankind that faces the terrifying and with only the small candlelight of "hope," overcomes the evil. Jaycee said it was the "small hope" in her heart that kept her alive. Hope...

Her hope bloomed from Love. It was the love of and for her mother that kept Jaycee alive.  It was the hope of seeing her mother again that saved Jaycee, kept her calm and comforted, and saved her little girls. And, it was the love shown to her by her mother that made Jaycee the mother she became despite the fact that she was isolated from the world and abused. While Jaycee says that she's not sure about God in any form, yet, she knows her survival had to do with the belief and hope of seeing her mother again.

This is a testament to Corinthians 13: "...Love never fails....And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." Love never dies.

This is the message of "The Road," even as we sift through the ashes and darkness, and this is the message of Jaycee Dugard.

Please hop by again soon as I'll be reading and reviewing Ms Dugard's book.

Deborah/TheBookishDame

Read More

Dystopian Novels Ring True and Traumatic! "Life As We Knew It" "Dead and Gone" and "This World We Live In" by Susan B. Pfeffer

 "THE DEAD AND THE GONE"   by  Susan Beth Pfeffer 

Library Journal Review:
An asteroid knocks the moon closer to Earth, and every conceivable natural disaster occurs. Seventeen-year-old Alex Morales's parents are missing and presumed drowned by tsunamis. Left alone, he struggles to care for his sisters Bri, 14, and Julie, 12. Things look up as Central Park is turned into farmland and food begins to grow. Then worldwide volcanic eruptions coat the sky with ash and the land freezes permanently. People starve, freeze, or die of the flu. Only the poor are left in New York—a doomed island—while the rich light out for safe towns inland and south. The wooden, expository dialogue and obvious setup of the first pages quickly give way to the well-wrought action of the snowballing tragedy. The mood of the narrative is appropriately frenetic, somber, and hopeful by turns. Pfeffer's writing grows legs as the terrifying plot picks up speed, and conversations among the siblings are realistically fluid and sharp-edged. The Moraleses are devout Catholics, and though the church represents the moral center of the novel, Pfeffer doesn't proselytize. The characters evolve as the city decomposes, and the author succeeds in showing their heroism without making them caricatures of virtue. She accurately and knowingly depicts New York City from bodegas to boardrooms, and even the far-fetched science upon which the novel hinges seems well researched. This fast-paced, thoughtful story is a good pick for melodrama fiends and reluctant readers alike.—Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library

Listen Up Award
Publishers Weekly
Best Books for Young Adults
Young Adult Library Services Association
Teen's Top Ten
Young Adult Library Services Association

Meet the Author:   Susan Beth Pfeffer

I decided to be a writer when I was in first grade and I've been fortunate to have lived my dream. Among my books are Kid Power, About David, and The Year Without Michael and The Riddle Streak. I'm also the author of a trilogy of books (sometimes called The Last Survivors), Life As We Knew It, The Dead And The Gone, and This World We Live In. My 77th book, Blood Wounds, is scheduled for publication on Sept. 12, 2011. I have a 99 year old mother and a 2 year old cat and many wonderful friends.

Book Cover Summary:
It's been a year since a meteor collided with the moon, catastrophically altering the earth’s climate. For Miranda Evans life as she knew it no longer exists. Her friends and neighbors are dead, the landscape is frozen, and food is increasingly scarce.

Miranda and her two brothers spend their days scavenging for food and household items, while their mother stays at home and desperately tries to hold on to the ordinary activities of their previous life. But they all know that nothing is truly normal in this surreal new world they live in.

The struggle to survive intensifies when Miranda’s father and stepmother arrive with a baby and three strangers in tow. One of the newcomers is Alex Morales, and as Miranda’s complicated feelings for him turn to love, his plans for his future thwart their relationship.

Then a devastating tornado hits the town of Howell, and Miranda makes a decision that will change their lives forever.


My Reviews:
I found these two YA audiobooks while browsing my local library's downloadable media, recently.  I'd never really heard of Susan B. Pfeffer, so I had no idea what I was in for but the story premises sounded good.  Now that I've discovered her, there's no turning back for me!  I'm a huge fan.

Dystopian novels are my newest craving and I'm always looking for good ones. It seems to me that YA fiction is hitting that mark best.  The authors are rising to the challenge, and their work is stellar...interesting and engaging.  With historical foundations such as "The Giver" by Lois Lowry, which I reviewed last month, the young adult genre has a "grandmothered" path laid for them.

It's difficult for me to listen to audiobooks.  I find them sleep inducing for one thing, and they make me want to do something with my hands for another thing..."idle hands are the devil's workshop" my grandmother taught me...so I want to stitch or knit!  When I do find something to do it often distracts me from the book!  And, further, it makes me wish I were reading the book instead of listening.  Hence, a little anxiety accompanies these things for me and I don't often make use of them.

This time, I listened attentively while making jewelry and found I was lost in the books, hardly knowing what I was making!  These books are very special.  The narrator is perfect for the main character, Miranda.  Her voice reached to the heart and captured the true essence of Miranda.  This alone made the books more believable.

Ms Pfeffer clearly is a veteran writer.  Her dialog is perfectly pitched and her characterization is excellent.  It reaches an ordinary cadence to the listener/reader making each character both real and full-bodied.  They were individuals that I felt close to and loved knowing.  I was, of course, especially fond of Miranda, but I also found myself protective of her mother, who tried so hard to maintain a safe and "normal" existence for her children amidst the decay that leached life all around them.  All of the characters lend themselves to one's interest and concern.  I've rarely found this in novels of any genre. 

In these novels a meteor has crashed into the moon and set the Earth into a disaster of such proportions that life hangs by a thread.  The sun is hidden, ash and smoke covers everything, thousands of people die and continue to die from catastrophic disasters.  Without the sun the plants and crops are contaminated and fail, and such common things as running water and electricity become non-existent.  Food becomes rationed and is minimal.  Miranda and her brothers scavenge abandoned homes for such simple items as toilet paper, books and soap. 

Relationships take on a new significance in this uncertain new world.  People become more precious and a new baby becomes even more a treasure.  Sickness and any sort of medical condition becomes a disaster waiting to happen with no hospitals and no medical supplies.  When one of the family is seriously injured, Miranda is faced with a moral dilemma that could affect all of them. 

All of these books are very special reads or audiobooks, whichever your choice may be.  While I haven't read "The Dead and The Gone" yet, I hope to as soon as I can get a copy of it.

Ms Pfeffer is a very gifted writer who makes characters rise above the ordinary.  She is more than imaginative, she's able to create worlds that are so believable you could walk into them in a blink of the eye.  It was frightening at times to hear the struggles Miranda and her family were enduring...making me wonder if life after a horrendous disaster of such proportions would be viable for the elderly and infirm at all.

"Foretelling" and eye-opening, these are books you really
don't want to miss this year.  Dystopian books at their best.

5 stars

  Here is a cover preview of Pfeffer's new book to be released in September.  I can hardly wait, and am hoping for a copy to review.  Stand by!

Please take a moment to visit her site to see her other books.  She's quite a prolific author of YA fiction.  And, she has amassed considerable awards for the books above...

http://susanbethpfeffer.blogspot.com/

Happy reading!
Deborah/TheBookishDame

Read More

BACK IN THE STACKS:

I chose this classic, award-winning novel for my Bookish Libraria Blog as a "Back in the Stacks" review book this past week.

It's actually, unbeknownst to me prior to my reading it, a dystopian novel about the coming of age and the coming to wisdom and understanding of a young boy in a futuristic society. A book I missed reading in school, but which my children were exposed to in my own childrens' time, this is somewhat dated in spots, I felt, but held the same sort of message that we hear and see in our own world and society today through a plethora of young adult literature.  That alone makes it worthy of reading!

It's a small book, but every page is profound. Lois Lowry knows how to write exactly like my Rhetoric professor wanted us to write...with precision and acuracy. Her every word has a purpose and meaning. And, in that instance, we discover that we need to pay attention, acutely, to what she's telling us.
This is a serious book with a warning for young and old, alike.
 
I found it most poignant that Ms Lowry wrote "The Giver" for young people at their pivitol age.  It's a book that is meant to make them consider the society they are apart of without a doubt, but it's also meant to make them question the world and the ways of life they've taken for granted. It hopes, it seems, to help them shed the scales from their eyes and take the plugs from their ears...to have the courage to rise up again the norm.  For that alone, I found it worthy of the Newberry Prize.

It seems to me that as adults we fear young people. We want to corral them, to keep them in check, to make sure they don't skate board near the Library. There's alot about them that reeks of uncontrollable power and unhinged disaster. There's impulse on edge, and the half-here-and-half-there sense of what's going to really damage their lives and the lives around them, and what's not.  Because of this, teens and pre-teens have this magical quality to them...this freshness of vision coupled with this wildness of vision like the boys in "Lord of the Flies," like those vampires and psychics and witches they "wanna be" in the YA novels.

In "The Giver" we see such power in the young protagonist. He is pent up and on the verge of destruction in several instances. We see him risk breaking serious rules only to see him pull back and turn to the side of wisdom to protect those he loves.   This is the quality that Lois Lowry is telling the young to emulate, this is the hidden treasure that the Giver has to offer~this potential to create a new system lovingly, or simply to destroy mindlessly. 

Ms Lowry acknowledges the terrible strength and power of the young adult to be victorious or to vanquish and offers an instruction of vision, values and valor.  In a society where everything is ordered, equal, peaceful and happy...life is not valued, and people deemed less than fit for society are done away with like old newspaper.
"The Giver" is a book worthy of literary and humanitarian awards, and it's a book worthy of being the classic it's become.

I strongly recommend "The Giver" to everyone, young and old, who hasn't already read it...and even to those who have.  It's a good time to reread this book. It's an especially good time to read it...

Deborah/TheBookishDame

Read More