The Devil's Roulette

I have been reading dystopian after dystopian lately. They all have slight similarities and many, many disturbing ideas in them. Though none of them have enough similarities to be able to actually compare to each other, apples and oranges. Delirium by Lauren Oliver is my most recent read and dystopian. Of all the books I have been reading this one seems closest to our world today and yet is the most unsettling. Try imagining a world where love, happiness, feeling emotions of any kind is considered to be a disease, a deformity, something needing medical attention. And it has even been given a name... Amor Deliria Nervosa. These faults have become so feared by this society that when you turn 18 you actually have to go through the procedure, which is basically a lobotomy... they remove the ability for you to ever feel any great emotion... no chance of falling in love, of enjoying hobbies, of feeling depressed or sad, life becomes an emotionless zombie-walk. And of course the people have become so brain-washed that they believe in the procedure and feel that life is better afterward. Until you have been "Cured" you live separately from the opposite sex, except for family and the occasional cured adult you happen to pass during daily life. Before you are "Cured" you will go through an evaluation that will determine your possible future, whether you are destined for college or to be married right away, what jobs you could potentially have, four matches of the opposite sex that you have to rate in order from 1 to 4 according to who you wish to end up with and finally you will be told the amount of kids you are allowed to have, if any. Life is determined for you in a way that makes you think you get at least small amount of a say. Of course, all the history, rules and safety for the city is all in a handbook and is fondly known as the Book of Shh. And of course there is a world outside of civilization known as the Wilds... this is where the invalids live... an invalid is anyone who managed to get away without being cured.
I love that the author has added quotes and paragraphs from the Book of Shh. It makes it come to life more and is quite sickening at times...
This is a Nursery Rhyme that is in the Book of Shh: 

Mama mama help me get home
I'm out in the woods, I am out on my own
I found me a werewolf, a nasty old mutt
It showed me it's teeth and went straight for my guy

Mama, mama help me get home
I'm out in the woods, I am out on my own
I was stopped by a vampire, a rotting old wreck
It showed me it's teeth, and went straight for my neck

Mama, mama, put me to bed
I won't make it home, I'm already half dead
I met an ivalid, and fell for his art
He showed me his smile, and went straight for my heart.

Here are a few quotes from the Book of Shh that really got to me:

"Human being, in their natural state, are unpredictable, erratic, and unhappy. It is only once their animal instincts are controlled that they can be responsible, dependable, and content"

"There has been significant debate in the scientific community about whether desire is a symptom of a system infected with amor deliria nervosa, or a precondition of the disease itself. It is unanimously agreed however, that love and desire enjoy a symbiotic relationship, meaning that one cannot exist without the other. Desire is enemy to contentment; desire is illness, a feverish brain. Who can be considered healthy who wants? The very word want suggests a lack, an impoverishment, and that is what desire is: an impoverishment of the brain, a flaw, a mistake. Fortunately, that can now be corrected."

"Humans, unregulated, are cruel and capricious; violent and selfish; miserable and quarrelsome. It is only after their instincts and basic emotions have been controlled that they can be happy, generous and good."

"Of all the systems of the body- neurological, cognitive, special, sensory- the cardiological system is the most sensitive and easily disturbed. The role of society must be to shelter these systems from infection and decay, or else the future of the human race is at stake. Like a summer fruit that is protected from insect invasion, bruising, and rot by the whole mechanism of modern farming; so must we protect the heart."

Samuel Beckett's Breath

I finished my 35th book yesterday, it was my debut author for July, Spellbound by Cara Lynn Shultz. I wish I had it in me to write something today but I'm beyond depressed over something I have to do later so it's just not happening. But I will say that I did enjoy this book very much. I wish it was the type of thing that could turn into a series but the author tied everything in so well, I just can't see how she could create something else with it. Slightly reminiscent of the story line in Blue Bloods (minus the vamps).

Don't Drag Your Butt Over This Document

My debut author for June was a little late, but worth the wait. Hereafter was a beautiful love story between a dead girl and a live boy. Of course there were a lot of paranormal factors involved  and was not completely about their relationship. I can't wait for the next book in this series to come out. Hopefully I will have more energy and time after reading the second one so I will be able to give it a review that it deserves.

10th Lucky Number

I finally finished reading the second book in Michael Grant's Gone series. The series is interesting, very different and all in all a good story but for some reason these books take me forever to read. As much as I want to see what happens next, I find them very easy to put down. Sometimes I find that the author has gone one step too far, he takes them to a place that isn't believable even in a fantasy world. I will definitely finish the series but I need a break from them for now.

Frozen Water

Book 32 was yet another dystopian. The idea for this book was much different than any other book I have read. It has a very "Lord of the Flies" feel to it. A bunch of kids stuck in a world with no adults (actually no one over the age of 14) and needing to run their community. One half of the kids are trying desperately just to survive and do it as dignified as possible and the other half wants domination, they never want the adults to come back and they want to rule the others with an iron fist (or cement). The twist of the story comes in the form of supernatural powers and of course the reason why the adults are all gone. Now as each of the children reach their 15th birthday they need to use all the strength they have to resist the possibility of blinking out. Like they don't have enough to worry about already. Oh wait... there are also all of the evolving animals: talking coyotes, flying snakes, and seagulls with talons. And who can forget... The Darkness... no one has really figured out just what the Darkness is yet but it can't be good. If they weren't being held in by a large dome-like barrier that electrocutes anyone who touches it perhaps they would be able to escape this new world, The FAYZ.
It seems as though the author has thrown together a large amount of crazy factors into a very large book, seems as though it could get tedious and a bit silly but it doesn't. Michael Grant put it all together very well and it flows nicely. The plots are interesting, the characters are very well developed and it becomes difficult to put the book down once you get going.

3rd Mersenne Prime

Feed is certainly not your typical dystopic novel. It's hysterical, serious, alarming, sad... altogether a satirical masterpiece. MT Anderson has put together a scary theory of what our world is coming to and he has you laughing the whole way through. When you begin the book, the language is shallow and unintelligent and almost forces you to quit reading but it quickly becomes obvious that Anderson is trying to prove a very real point. The world is becoming dumb. We all live in our little media driven, electronically created bubbles that have allowed us to forget what learning is. Our minds don't need to retain information since computers hold all the knowledge of the world. Reading and writing are practically myths and an extensive vocabulary is a thing of the past. Every other word used is "Like" or "dude", even coming from the mouth of an adult. Anderson makes a great show of how easily we can become tied up in slang by using random, everyday words with definitions we are not accustomed to. The internet and technology are literally eating away at us, leaving us motionless and faceless consumers. It all comes down to what we buy and how much we spend. Things that once belonged to the people are now trademarked by large corporations (i.e. School™,  Clouds™).

Lunar Month

I could not have chosen a better time to read this book... or a worse. It's a great time because of the cliche I was able to use for book number 30. On the other hand... seeing as last weekend was supposed to be the beginning of the end of the world and we've had nothing but monsoon-like weather for over a week... it was a very bad time to read this book.
I have been reading a lot of very scary, disturbing dystopians lately. But none has been as scary as this one. Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer is the most realistic book I have read recently. Maybe the idea of a meteor being able to knock the moon off it's axis is ridiculous but... maybe it isn't... who knows what could happen in this world. And of course the tsunami's, storms, volcano's and other natural disasters that occurred are not very far from all the crazy stuff that has been going on in the world today. When I started the book, it seemed very young and immature, then by the end of the second chapter I was hysterically crying. For a while it was a bit boring and slow moving but there is only so much you can write with this kind of a story, and even while it was slow, it was still completely devastating and far too easy to place yourself into the plot. As I reached Winter, I realized that the author started the book out sounding so young on purpose, she wanted to show how much Miranda was forced to grow due to the circumstances.
Despite the fact that it was slow moving, it was a very exceptional book. I'm not sure my emotions can handle reading the next book in the series right now, so I think I will try another for now and come back to it later.

Alice Marvels is hosting an amazing book giveaway...http://www.alicemarvels.com/spring-giveaway