Hirsch, J. (2011). The Eleventh Plague. NY: Scholastic. As you can tell, I’m a big reader of dystopian fiction (but really, who isn’t these days?), and so when I saw an advertisement for The Eleventh Plague, I knew what book I was going to check out next. Set in an unspecified future United States that…
Sheehan, A. (2011). A Long, Long Sleep. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick. Much like Beth Revis’s 2011 Across the Universe, this dystopian novel by first-time YA author Anna Sheehan features a protagonist who has been kept for years in suspended animation or, in the terms of A Long, Long Sleep, stasis or “stass.” When sixteen-year-old Rosalinda “Rose”…
Healey, Karen (2011). The Shattering. NY: Little, Brown. 314 pages. I had read and enjoyed Healey’s first novel for young adults, Guardian of the Dead, a fantasy-themed mystery set in New Zealand that incorporated elements of Maori myth and legend to inform its fantastic premise, and I have to say I liked this one even…
Higson, Charles (2010). The Enemy. NY: Hyperion. 440 pages. Take one part Michael Grant’s Gone (Harper, 2008) and mix with one part Jonathan Mayberry’s Rot and Ruin (Simon and Schuster, 2010), set it in contemporary London, and you’ve almost got the setup for Higson’s The Enemy. This book begins a little more than one year…
Bacigalupi, Paolo (2010). Shipbreaker. NY: Little, Brown. So I finally read this year’s Printz award winner, Shipbreaker. And I thought it was just OK. To be honest, I expected a little more characterization and a little less action and, while I agree with the somewhat Socialist sentiments the book ultimately espouses, I wish Bacigalupi had…
Condie, Ally (2010). Matched. NY: Dutton. 384 pages. I really wanted to like this book and I did, sort of. You know me: I’ll take any dystopian fiction you’ll hand me; however, with Matched, I think the book failed to live up to the fanfare. The dystopian premise is intriguing: the novel begins when seventeen-year-old…
Reeves, Dia (2011). Slice of Cherry. NY: Simon Pulse. 512 pages. Dia Reeves’ long second novel is set in the same somewhat haunted town in which she set her debut, Bleeding Violet; however, Reeves assures us via her blog that Slice of Cherry is not a sequel to Bleeding Violet. That said, readers of Bleeding…
Block, Francesca Lia (2010). The Frenzy. NY: HarperTeen. 258 pages. I do love me some Francesca Lia Block and, with The Frenzy, Block has added a somewhat anomalous entry to the current young adult supernatural romance genre: a short werewolf fantasy romance. If you thought, as I did, that we YA readers were doomed to…
Healey, Karen (2010). Guardian of the Dead. Boston, MA: Little, Brown. 352 pages. I’d venture to say that, in the United States, it’s not often that YA book from New Zealand makes its way to our library and bookstore shelves. It’s even less likely that an action-fantasy book from New Zealand that makes heavy reference…
Smith, Andrew (2010). The Marbury Lens. NY: Feiwel and Friends. 368 pages. A former student of mine recommended this one to me last fall and I’m only sorry I waited so long to hunt it down. The Marbury Lens, the third novel by YA author Andrew Smith, is the epitome (and probably the prototype) of…