Get Lost in Literature

"The past was dead, the future was unimaginable. What certainty had he that a single human creature now living was on his side?" Let me start by saying that a portion of my readers are not going to like my review as I plan to compare it to certain current events. Some Democrats (mostly online) have dramatically compared the current Administration to the government that exists inside this book. After reading the book, I think the comparison is a bit extreme, but they're not completely wrong about there being similarities. Winston Smith starts this dystopian classic by writing a diary, an act that is punishable by death. He lives in the totalitarian state of Oceania, where free-thinking is forbidden. As stated above I can't help but draw parallels between our current day world, and the world depicted in 1984 . Everyone in Oceania is under surveillance; their movements and conversations constantly videoed and recorded by telescreens and monitored by the Thought Police. T...

"We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of growing on good rain and black loam." This story takes place in a futuristic world where books are banned and burned. Guy Montag, whose job it is to burn the books, is about to become an enemy of the state. I'm having a hard time thinking critically about this book. It wasn't a difficult read, it was scary in certain places, and I found it deeply enjoyable (sometimes classic lit can drag on), and relevant to today's societal and political problems. Yet the review doesn't come easy. Guy Montag lives a life of normalcy. He gets up and goes to work everyday, lucky enough to have a job he enjoys. He comes home to his wife, Mildred who spends her days watching tv. Watching television has become a favorite hobby of the people of this dystopian society, their house installed with three wall-tvs, and Mildred begging for a fourth. She's the epitome of this 'perfect' society. She...

  "Your assumptions are windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won't come in." Nessie gets up one day and leaves her house in a walking coma, seemingly impervious to all external stimuli. Soon Nessie is joined by others like her, as they begin their journey to God knows where. They are the flock. Shana, Nessie's sister, gives up everything to care for her sister and is soon joined by other devoted friends and relatives of the flock. These are the shepherds. Both shepherds and flock are closely monitored by Benji Ray and his coworkers from the CDC as a secondary outbreak occurs, more deadly and insidious than the first. I loved certain things about this book. The mystery of the flock: what happened to them and where are they going and why are they going there. The shepherds' dedication and sacrifice, the forging of bonds in the time of mass hysteria, as the caravan travels in blind faith. Equal parts suspense and cautionary tale, it...

“Perhaps the logical conclusion of everyone looking the same is everyone thinking the same.” ― Scott Westerfeld, Uglies In this futuristic world, there are Uglies and there are Pretties. Main character, Tally is an Ugly, who can't wait for her sixteenth birthday, that magical birthday when all newly 16-year-olds get to undergo plastic surgery to become a Pretty. Once Pretty, she gets to go to New Prettytown, where a Pretty's only job is to have fun. Everything looks like it's going to go according to Tally's plan, until her friend Shay, decides to run away rather than become pretty...And Tally is given the task of tracking her down and bringing her back to civilization. I didn't love this book from start to finish, but some parts were definitely more lovable than others. At first, the story was hard to get into: Even though the story is told by Tally, who is almost sixteen, her voice seemed to belong to someone much younger than a teenager approaching adulthood. In ...

  The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking #1) by Patrick Ness   "That's the thing I'm learning about being thrown out on your own. Nobody does nothing for you. If you don't change it, it don't get changed." Todd Hewwit knows a lot of things: he knows a group of settlers left the Old World for the New World, to live a simpler existence away from the evils of society. He knows there was a war between the native people, The Spackles, and the humans. He knows The Spackles used Germ Warfare; releasing bugs that turned the internal monologues of men into never ending Noise, while killing off all the women, and giving animals the power to speak. He knows The Spackles were eventually defeated, leaving Prentisstown the only surviving settlement. Todd, the youngest member of Prentisstown, is eagerly awaiting the arrival of his thirteenth birthday, where he will officially be considered a man. But when Todd and his dog Manchee discover a hole in the Noise, he learns...

The Interprovincial Medical Institute has taken it upon itself to protect us, from ourselves. A parasitic orgnaization, it infects young minds and turns selected children into doctors. It monopolizes the medical profession entirely, forcing its human hosts into a co-dependent relationship. Baron de Verdira, a cruel ruler in a desperate countryside, is heavily reliant on the Institute's expertise to keep himself alive. His old doctor died under mysterious circumstances and it will be up to his replacement to unravel the horrors in Chateau de Verdira, just as a bitter winter descends. The baron's new doctor discovers a dangerous parasite infestation, other than its own. A strange creature with probing black legs, that's quietly propagating and subsequently killing its hosts. As the doctor investigates the newly discovered parasite, she begins to realize there is more infecting the residents of Verdira than parasites.  Leech by Hiron Ennes is being market as a "debut...

“Four hundred billion suns spiraling through space together. Our solar system just one grain on that galactic carousel. The carousel itself a speck in the cosmos. And here I am in this small clearing, on the surface of the earth, as transient and unnoticed to the universe as the dry blades of grass that are poking into my shirt.”  This is the story of Sol. Who lives in a world where modern civilization has been divided into Night-dwellers (Smudges) and Day-dwellers (Rays). When I started this book, I admit I had something like Twilight in mind. I had a stressful week, and I wanted some light hearted, young adult nonsense, that oozed happiness from beginning to end. This did not ooze happiness, it oozed desperation. And I couldn't make myself stop reading it, because I was equally desperate to know what happened next.  Sol, a Smudge, is about to be left alone in the world. Her brother Ciel was reassigned to Day, she has no parents, and the grandfather who raised her is d...

“Humans have been trying to clean up the world ever since they figured out soap and water. I think that’s what their Devil really taught them… …That was the true fall from grace. You can’t be part of nature if you’re trying to be clean all the time.” SymboGen, pharmaceutical pioneers, designed a solution for the world health crisis. They've genetically altered a tapeworm to combat allergies, diseases, and even act as birth control. Main character, Sally Mitchell becomes the poster child for SymboGen, after almost dying in a car accident and being saved by her patented Intestinal Bodyguard. But once the Intestinal Bodyguards begin waking up and attacking their hosts’ bodies, Sally begins to search for answers and discovers that the last six years of her life were a lie… Symbiont ’s one-liner synopsis, “The enemy is inside us,” doesn’t quite cover it. The enemy is inside us, but it’s also next to us, down the street from us, chasing us…The enemy is everywhere. The enemy ...

Dust (Silo #3) by Hugh Howey “Our actions, you know? They last forever. Whatever we do, it’ll always be what we did. There’s no taking them back.” In Wool we’re introduced to the world of Silo 18; people have fled an inhospitable environment to live underground. They’ve forgotten the world they come from and anyone who dreams of returning to it, is forced out. Shift introduced us to the world of corrupt political heads who are willing to get what they want by any means necessary, as well as the survivors of failed Silo 17. Dust brings us back to present time in the Silo Saga universe, with Juliette as the newly elected Mayor of Silo 18. Juliette is determined to dig ; she wants to expand the Silo 18 and claim 17,  she wants to rescue her new friends and prove to everyone else that she isn’t crazy. Lukas is torn between his love for Juliette and his duties to the Silo as the new head of IT; he’s worried the Juliette is creating too much fear and that the Silo is headed...

Shift (Silo #2) by Hugh Howey  In Wool , HH introduces us to a dystopian world where the survivors of the apocalypse are living in an underground bunker called a Silo. These survivors live in fear of the outside world which no longer supports life, even though they've been down there so long they no longer remember their own origin story. The seeds of doubt are sewn in Wool , as the main characters start to realize they've been lied to all along; leading to revolutions and revelations. Shift  is the totally creep-tastic sequel/prequel to  Wool .  The story starts before the construction of the Silos, introducing new and devious characters. Senator Thurman who'll save the world as he wants it to be, however he can, and his daughter Anna Thurman, who'll do whatever it takes to get what she wants. Donald Keene, a politician/architect who is asked onto a special classified project, and his wife Helen, who fears that the project is driving her husband insane. Thi...

Wool Omnibus (Silo #1) by Hugh Howey "These buildings"--he pointed to what looked like large white cans sitting on the ground--"these are silos. They hold seed for the bad times. For until times get good again... This is a silo. They put us here for the bad times." The world has become a toxic wasteland forcing people to live underground in an enormous, multi-story bunker called a silo. There only appear to be two rules in the silo: don't commit crime and don't speak about going outside. The punishment for breaking the rules: being sent out outside. This book actually started out as five self-published novellas; the Omnibus edition is all five novellas combined to a comprehensive novel. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this because self-publishing tends to be sloppy and dystopian tends to be sad... I was ready for a grammatically incorrect depress-fest. There's nothing sloppy about this book, although it is one of those stories difficult t...

In this futuristic world, there are Uglies and there are Pretties. Main character, Tally is an Ugly, who can't wait for her sixteenth birthday, that magical birthday when all newly 16-year-olds get to undergo plastic surgery to become a Pretty. Once Pretty, she gets to go to the New Prettytown, where a Pretty's only job is to have fun. Everything looks like its going to go according to Tally's plan, until her friend Shay, decides to run away rather than become pretty...And Tally is given the task of tracking her down and bring her back into civilization. I didn't love this book from start to finish, but some parts were definitely more lovable than others. At first the story was hard to get into: Even though the story is told by Tally, who is almost sixteen, her voice seemed to belong to someone much younger than a teenager approaching adulthood. In the beginning it was hard to relate to someone so childlike, but when Tally started meeting with the Agents of Special...

Parasite (Parasitology #1) by Mira Grant Parasite is the future. As humanity tries to scrub and sterilize every surface they and their children might encounter, they reduce their bodies’ tolerance for allergens. SymboGen, pharmaceutical pioneers, design a solution for the world health crisis. They've genetically altered a tapeworm to combat allergies, diseases, and even act as birth control. All you've got to do is swallow one little pill, every couple of years. What could go wrong? Main character, Sally Mitchell becomes the poster child for SymboGen, after almost dying in a car accident and being saved by her patented Intestinal Bodyguard. One problem: When she wakes up from her coma she has know idea who she is, who her family is, or what they're saying to her because she's also forgotten English. Six years later, Sally Mitchell is still an amnesiac living under the thumb of Big-Pharma and it isn't easy. They treat her like a lab rat and expect her to beh...

About 50 years in the future, the government as we know it no longer exists, the pharmaceutical companies own everything, and nature took what PharmAgra didn't want. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and the sick dropped dead. Anderson Carmichael just wants a car. Henry Weller wants his daughter's vision. Carmichael's got the ultimate bargaining chip; access to medical care. This is the dystopian story of how far a father will go to see his child healthy. There were big gaping holes in the story, as entertaining as it was... Little tidbits that weren't explained but maybe should have been. The Great Dying -- clues are dropped throughout the story and one can safely assume mutated food made people sick, less safely assume PharmAgra may have been responsible for it? but most definitely knew how to un-mutate the food. Branding-- little microchips implanted in necks, used to identify people. If you have a brand, you're a someone. If you don't, you live...

Countdown: A Newsflesh Novella   by Mira Grant This was an ok novella... A bit of a let down after reading the Newsflesh Trilogy. What worked: I liked seeing the doctors who created the virus and the jerk who set it free as far as understanding how it all began.  And despite the peeks at the Mason family before Shaun and Georgia became a part of it, the POV of Marigold was most effective at explaining how innocent lives were being affected.  I liked at the end of each "chapter" they showed the news reports.  What didn't work: The writing was frantic and vague; I know it was supposed to be a short story, but if a prequel is going to be invented it should add to the story somehow--it needed a little development.  I wish the cause and effect had been built upon a little more; the Mason's are lovely before the infection and despite the devastating loss of their son I don't really see how they transformed into rating-hungry villains. Rating: 2/5...

Blackout (Newsflesh Trilogy #3)  by Mira Grant I was surprised by Blackout. It does not have the high suspense of Feed, or the dark action of Deadline, but it's no less frightening. The CDC is out to prove that zombies haven't taken over the world, mad scientists have; and you're being given a truly inside look at the mad science by the pov of a clone. As you see the story inside the CDC progress, you begin to understand the gravity of the "cold equations"; the corruption, the power, the danger, involved in the science. She may have been created in a test tube, but she's still human... And they talk about her like a used car. You also get Sean's pov; he's still crazy, but the voices in his head are learning to go from helpful to venomous whenever he doubts himself. There is a severe lack of emotion in this book - not altogether unexpected from the CDC - but the team is coping with the possibility nobody's getting out alive, and if they do ...

Deadline (Newsflesh Trilogy #2) by Mira Grant Shaun and his friends are in hiding; forced to lay low after the conspiracy they uncovered out on the campaign trail. An employee from the CDC shows up at their door, just after being declared dead. She's got information they need, as a new threat looms on the horizon-- Kellis-Amberlee has a new and dangerous vector as the conspiracy just keeps growing. This book was even better than the first! The first book was a bit more technical with a closer look at the bloggers of the future, the suspense dribbled out a little slower amidst confusion as the characters began to assemble the pieces of a conspiracy. Which seemed so awesome while I was reading, I didn't bother to imagine the the next level of the story would be so drastically different. The second book there is no shortage of action: zombies, running, screaming, paranoia... The conspiracy is here, and there is no where to hide. Biology and virology now overshadow our...

Feed (Newsflesh Trilogy #1)  by Mira Grant Scientists cured cancer...Then they cured the common cold. But when the two cures mixed, they created a virus that caused the dead to rise. During the rising, bloggers suddenly became invaluable, these online journalists able to get information out to the public faster than newspapers and the speed saved lives... 20 years later, Shaun, Georgia, and Georgette are talented bloggers invited to cover a presidential candidate's campaign trail and wind up uncovering a dangerous conspiracy that changed the world. This was fantastic. I'm not a huge dystopia fan but as far as futuristic-world-gone-to-hell stories this was pretty incredible. The book starts fairly humorous to ease the reader into the horror in which the character are actually accustomed to living. Which is a nice place to start a zombie book-- when the running and screaming is over and people are back living their lives as best they can. Then with each new action scene,...

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks I loved this! It was really well thought out, very smart. The formatting is very different from anything else I've read. It isn't written in a traditional story line and is a compilation of many mini-stories of the people who survived. The main character is faceless/nameless...He's not really narrating the story, he's just moving it along. The "chapters" are broken down into pivotal points during the zombie war: the first outbreaks, corner cutting solutions, survival, war, and revolutions... Each point in the story is seen from the point of view of many characters as opposed to just one. No "interview" lasts more than a few pages and each adds to the bigger picture. I think this book was beautifully done; it illustrates how far people are willing to go to survive, depicting desperation, ingenuity and at times, insanity. I think Max Brooks took a pessimistic and probably too tr...

I had to force myself to give this story the 5/5 rating. Don't get me wrong it certainly deserved the full score. It has all the things I love in a story: a richly detailed setting, engaging multi-layered characters, an outrageously addictive plot, great writing... I loved it while I was reading it. On the other hand, once the story ended, I thought through everything the story contained and its ending, and I admit it makes me slightly suicidal. It's one of those reads that is written well enough you want to climb right into the pages and at the same time makes you wish you hadn't. I loved this story, will probably never read it again, but will probably read the sequel. It is also one of those stories that is going to be difficult to review without dropping spoilers, simply because so much happens, but I'm going to try. This story can be broken down by major plot points. The Beginning of the End Characters of the beginning of the end include Carter, Wolgast, L...