Dystopia is a society based on personality quizzes ( Read more... )

I realized while chatting with
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I was recently pointed to a new YA dystopia straight out of the YA dystopia generator.

Caffeine has been banned and the government controls water.I have no idea what that book is actually like (unfortunately, it looks like it isn't a comedy) but my problem with a lot of recent YA dystopias is that they do didacticism badly: bluntly, to the ( Read more... )

I would never be a crazed sex-teen!Someone could write a good teen dystopia based on the screwed-up messages that modern American society sends to teenage girls: If you have sex with boys, you’re a slut. If you don’t, you’re a prude, a lesbian, or a reject. If you dress fashionably, you’re a slut. If you dress conservatively, you’re a prude. If you ( Read more... )

Bate your breath! I have been informed that XVI (Sexteen), the winner of the YA dystopia poll, is winging its way to me through the LA library system, and will probably arrive tomorrow.

Payment instructions will be individually posted to your comments once I write the review.

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There are some rather interesting discrepancies between the votes in general, and the votes of sponsors who are actually ponying up some cash. In overall totals, we have Bumped (teen pregnancy is bad) in the lead, followed by VI (Sexteen) (teenage girls having sex is bad), and then Divergent (basing society on a personality quiz is bad ( Read more... )

Several of you suggested that I hold a poll so you could vote for me to read and review a YA dystopian novel, and sponsor me to do so to raise money for The Virginia Avenue Project. (Making Los Angeles less dystopic since 1992 ( Read more... )

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I did not deliberately select my sample reading for simplistic high concepts, but wow, did I get a lot ( Read more... )

Across the Universe, by Beth Revis: Kindle Sample (first four chapters)Old-school science fiction, the sort a lot of old-school sf fans think teenagers ought to be reading: Amy and her parents are cryogenically frozen to board a generation ship; generations later, the ship has formed its own, undoubtedly dystopian, society. The old-fashioned ( Read more... )