This is a book of ideas. A slight character story overlaid on a world of big ideas. Amusingly sad; sadly amusing. Consider, for instance, its beginning:
Sexual Responsibility is boring.
It isn't Ms. Brody's fault. She's a good teacher. She switches channels at appropriate moments, tases students who need tasing--zizzz-ZAAPPP!--and she only once got stuck in the garbage can beside her teaching station. She was a teeny bit weepy that day, but no drunker than normal . . .
Fifteen year old Aya has learned to hide from the men who hunt females, then auction off their breeding rights to the highest bidder. She has avoided capture and lived freely with a rag tag group of women in the mountains. But when she is caught by businessmen on a hunting trip, she must learn to fight to survive in a whole new way.
Over the course of two days, Ben and Maggie have met and fallen in love, only to die together countless times. They struggle again and again to resist the pull of their fate and time itself. Every time they come closer to breaking out of the time loop, everything becomes more deeply ingrained and more inescapable. They think up a desperate plan to break free and survive, but what if their only shot at not dying is to live apart?
In Zeroes we were introduced to a group of teens with unusual, mostly subtle superpowers who find themselves in an increasing amount of trouble with both drug dealers and the police, using the very powers that got them into trouble in the first place to get them out again. I liked the novel a lot, so when I found out about the sequel, I was very excited.
One day, brilliant colored spheres showed up, hidden all over the world. No one knows where they came from, but they make you have special abilities. Burn a pair and they make you a little bit better, whether making you an inch taller or better looking. The rarer a sphere, the more expensive it is, and the better improvement. When Sully teams up with Hunter, a girl skilled at finding spheres, they never expected they would find a gold, a color no one has ever seen.
Pia grew up in a secret laboratory hidden in the rainforest, completely cut off from the outside world. She was raised by scientists to be the first of a new immortal race. But one night, she discovers a hole in the fence separating her from freedom, and sneaks out. She meets Eio, a boy from a local village, and together try to discover the dark and sinister story of her origin.
Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing.
They didn’t understand that once love -- the deliria -- blooms in your blood, there is no escaping its hold. Things are different now. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the government demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Holoway has always looked forward to the day when she’ll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy.
When Tegan decides to donate her body to science, she never expected to wake up 100 years later locked in a top-secret facility with no idea how she got there, or what happened on the day that was supposed to be the best of her life. The future isn’t at all what she had hoped, and when she learns the terrible secrets of the government that saved her, she must decide whether to keep her head down and try to survive, or fight for what she knows is right.
The nation of Panem is a post-apocalyptic version of North America. It consists of 12 poorer districts and the powerful and wealthy Capitol. Early in it’s history, the 13 districts rebelled against the Capitol which resulted in the destruction of the 13th district and, as punishment, an annual televised show called the Hunger Games. Each year, all the districts must choose a boy and a girl to send to the games that are forced to fight to the death, until only one survivor remains to claim victory. When Katniss’ sister Prim is chosen, she volunteers to stand in her place.
Illuminae is one of the most enjoyable books I’ve come across recently. I don’t know what it would be like to read the book, but the audio was marvelous to listen to. The different voices encapsulate the personalities and essences of the different characters, making the story richer and adding depth.
