Tankborn by Karen Sandler
Part of the blurb (last paragraph omitted because spoilers — why do publishers do that?):
Best friends Kayla and Mishalla know they will be separated for their Assignments. They are GENs, Genetically Engineered Non-humans, and in their strict caste system, GENs are at the bottom rung of society. GENs are gestated in a tank and sent to work as slaves as soon as they reach age fifteen.
When Kayla is Assigned to care for Zul Manel, the patriarch of a trueborn family, she finds secrets and surprises; not least of which is her unexpected friendship with Zul’s great-grandson. Meanwhile, the children that Mishalla is Assigned to care for are being stolen in the middle of the night.
The most prominent aspect of Tankborn is the rigid class structure that segregates the society. Natural-born humans are ranked from the rich, land-owning high-status trueborns down to the servant class low-borns. Beneath them all are the GENs — genetically engineered people with small amounts of animal DNA included in their make-up giving them extra talents and making them less than human. As one might expect with the main characters being GENs, a lot of the social commentary revolves around non-GENs being varying degrees of horrible to the GEN main characters. However, there’s definitely more to it than that.
For a start, the GENs have a different religion to trueborns. The trueborns follow a religion that is implicitly vaguely Christian (or at least monotheistic and involving worshipping a similar god), while the GEN religion involves worshipping the Infinite, who whispered to the prophets how to create GENs and whose plan for GENs involves servitude. It’s a case of using religion to control the masses, hardly a new idea, but not one that I think I’ve come across in YA. It was done well, even as it unravelled, and Sandler didn’t pull any punches.
She knew it was the Infinite’s will, that a GEN’s trial of servitude was the only way back to His hands.The GEN religion is very much based around keeping GENs in their place. A further example:
But liberation for GENs on Loka [their planet] would violate the Infinite’s laws. It would only be right for GENs to taste true freedom in the palm of the Infinite’s hand.And so forth.
As with any dystopia, we see the fabric of the society start to unravel, partially at the hands of our main characters. Despite this being the first book in a trilogy, I was pleased to see that it’s story was self-contained, hooks for the sequel notwithstanding, as I was half expecting the main action not to be resolved. Since book one merely described the first step in the (standard YA dystopian trend of) dismantling of society, I look forward to reading how it all progresses.
I had only two small peeves with Tankborn. The first is that both the romantic couples liked each other a little too suddenly and their relationships became serious a bit more quickly than I would have expected. I can see why it fit with the plot that way, but it did make me go “Hrm.”
The other thing is the technology. Tankborn is set on a colonised planet with the GENs being invented (for lack of a better word) some time after the colony had been established. (Incidentally, I hope we learn more about the colonisation process in the future books. I am deeply curious and would be disappointed if some form of Conspiracy didn’t surround colonisation.) So it’s a future where interstellar space travel has been perfected. But the technology they were using on the planet — aside from the GENs who had fancy artificial neural networks — consisted mainly of readers similar to iPads and smartphone-style wrist watches. Which isn’t exactly bad per se, but that’s kind of he level of technology we’re at now. It struck me as a bit unimaginative. On the other hand, the Author’s Note did mention that the story originated as a screenplay in the mid-80s, which could account for it.
All in all, Tankborn was a good read. I highly recommend it to fans of dystopias as well as fans of general science fiction. Although it’s marketed as YA, I see no reason for readers of all ages not to enjoy it.
4.5 / 5 stars
First published: 2011, Tu Books
Series: Tankborn, book 1 (of 3?)
Format read: ebook on iPad
Source: US iTunes store (ebook not available outside of US, paper book only available as an import, as far as I can tell)
Content imported from Blogger http://bit.ly/10Z6Gv6. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at the aforementioned link.
The Eternity Cure by Julie Kagawa
I enjoyed The Immortal Rules a lot. I thought the writing was cinematic with just the right amount of action and tension. By contrast, when I first picked up The Eternity Cure I was very disappointed. The writing was much more pedestrian and lacklustre. After about 60 pages I put it down and read something else. When I came back to it, about six weeks later, with severely lowered expectations, I found I was ultimately still able to enjoy the book. There were some descriptive and action passages which I found myself skimming over to get to the dialogue which was more enjoyable to read.
The mundanely written action scenes were a particular let-down since there was so much action in the story. And a lot of twists. It was nice to be surprised by expected developments but by the end there had been so many twists and turns, it was wearying. It did keep me turning the pages because the tension rarely let up, but many of the developments had me groaning.
On to more positive things! The worldbuilding and plot were well thought out. Every time I though “hang on, that doesn’t make sense” it would soon be explained how that particular element fit seamlessly into the plot/world. Although the ending sets us up for an obvious showdown in the last book, it also left me keen to find out how the worldbuilding questions will be resolved. (Will there be a cure for rabidism? Will humans be able to live independently from vampires on a large scale? Will Allison and friends indeed save the world?)
The characterisation was also well done. Allison continues to be a believable character and her angst about pretty much everyone else is justified and not angst for its own sake. The character that got the biggest rise out of me was Stick. In the first book, he was Allison’s friend pre-vampirification, but then things change. When we encounter him in The Eternity Cure, his new situation makes him a massive prat and I really wanted to bash him over the head with something every time he appeared. He was so frustrating! But getting an emotional rise (on purpose) is a mark of good character writing.
Unfortunately, unlike in The Immortal Rules, there weren’t any female characters other than Allison which was disappointing. Hopefully that will be remedied in the sequel.
I recommend The Eternity Cure to readers who enjoyed The Immortal Rules, with the caveat of not having overly high expectations. I think the story is worth continuing with despite some of this volume’s shortcomings. I am looking forward to reading the last book and seeing how everything turns out. For readers who haven’t picked up The Immortal Rules yet, I highly recommend doing so, particularly fans of vampires or dystopias who might be sick of the usual stuff.
3.5 / 5 stars
First published: May 2013, Harlequin Teen Australia
Series: Blood of Eden, book 2 of 3
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Content imported from Blogger http://bit.ly/15e9tcn. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at the aforementioned link.
Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal, but The Reestablishment has plans for her. Plans to use her as a weapon. But Juliette has plans of her own. After a lifetime without freedom, she’s finally discovering a strength to fight back for the very first time—and to find a future with the one boy she thought she’d lost forever.The story opens with Juliette living in appallingly poor conditions in a mental hospital/prison where she’s been thrown thanks to her superpower of being able to hurt and kill people with the touch of her bare skin. Then the dystopian government (or one specific leader there of) decides to use her as a weapon. Adam, a childhood sort-of-friend of Juliette’s, works his way into the army so that he can be close to her with the hope of breaking her out.
Distopia is as dystopia does.
Shatter Me suffered from a touch of nonsensical-dystopian-worldbuilding-itis. The US has become a military dictatorship for no clear reason (climate change was mentioned but didn’t seem to be a severe contributing factor). As is usual in these situations, the rest of the world almost doesn’t seem to exist (other countries are mentioned in passing eventually, though not so we’d know what was happening there). And, of course, the people in power, especially the leader Juliette interacts directly with, seem to be evil. How original. Sorry, but I’m a bit sick of this sort of world building. It started more promisingly when Juliette was still locked in her cell.
What is more promising is the style in which the story is told. It’s in first person and Juliette constantly speaks in hyperbolic metaphors. She also second guesses herself a lot, particularly at the start, so that
Juliette’s attitude of disgust towards herself and her abilities was perfectly understandable. She never meant to hurt anyone and the fact that she can accidentally would be difficult to come to terms with. What did bother me a little bit was the instant feelings she had towards Adam when he showed up, but this was mitigated by the fact that she did in fact remember him from her childhood.
Warner, the local leader of the dystopian government, was a pretty good villain. He was appropriately power-hungry and creepily obsessed with Juliette. And good at hurting Juliette both intentionally and as a side-effect of being a power-hungry maniac.
Right up until the end I wasn’t sure if I would bother reading the sequel. I didn’t hate the reading experience overall, but neither did I love the story. However, it ended on a promising note, which is currently swaying me towards wanting to know more (when it comes out in paperback… if they keep the same pretty covers), pending friends’ reviews, perhaps. All in all, I’ve definitely read worse YA dystopian books. I think Mafi uses both the twist of Juliette’s abilities and the hyperbolic narrator’s voice well to distinguish her book from others in the genre.
I recommend Shatter Me to fans of YA dystopias. Particularly to those who might be looking for something a bit more interesting in terms of stylistic choices. I am interested to see where the series goes — apart from the obvious bringing down the government, I’m not entirely sure. Not a terrible read, but not one of my favourites.
3.5 / 5 stars
First published: 2011, Harper Collins US (Allen & Unwin in Australia)
Series: The Juliette Chronicles, book 1 of 3
Format read: paperback, US edition (as pictured above — the Australian covers are pretty terrible, especially in comparison)
Source: Christmas present (requested)
Content imported from Blogger http://bit.ly/XlZj0E. If you would like to leave a comment, please do so at this link: http://bit.ly/XlZj0E.
Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken
One day, children in America aged between 10 and 14 start dying suddenly and unpredictably. It starts just before Ruby’s tenth birthday. She survives but, it turns out, she and the other few survivors aren’t normal or lucky. They have powers which make the adults terrified of them. So terrified that they’re sent away to faux-rehabilitation camps. Ruby spends six years in such a camp, pretending to have the most benevolent set of powers although she actually has one of the most dangerous sets, before she’s broken out by a vigilante group. And so the main adventures of being on the run begin.
I had a big problem with the underlying premise of this novel. There are several sets of “psi” powers (as in the Greek letter Ψ, presumably because it sounds like psychic), coded by colours in the book: greens are basically savants, blues can move things around with their minds, yellows can influence electricity, oranges can influence other people’s minds, and reds… I’m not sure but they sounded dangerous, possibly they can manipulate fire. I can understand people being afraid of oranges, but what I really really don’t understand is why the kids were all locked up instead of being militarised or at least used for the benefit of the country. Bloody hell, the US was the only country to be afflicted and they didn’t use it as an opportunity to get an upper hand on the rest of the world. No, instead their economy crashed and all the other countries stopped talking to them. And how did no one fully consider (and do something about!) the long-term implications of children either dying or having psi powers? If you lock up all the surviving children, what’s going to happen to the country when you’re old and there is no younger generation to keep things going? What. The. Frack. I understand the reasoning behind society falling apart, but even I have slightly more confidence in the US government to make use of the situation. It’s not as though they were disorganised; they did manage to lock almost all the kids up in camps. And then left them there, or got rid of the most dangerous ones. About the only sensible thing they managed to do was to experiment on some of them (which is horrible for the children, of course, but a logical thing for a government to do in the circumstances), but that doesn’t seem to have gotten them anywhere.
Rant over. On to the other aspects of the book.
Unlike some YA books which codify special powers up front, Darkest Minds refers to them indirectly, leaving the reader to work them out gradually. I enjoyed this type of presentation, although not knowing exactly what other kids were capable of was a bit frustrating, especially when it was clear that Ruby did have some idea.
I liked the other characters sixteen-year-old Ruby spends most of the book with: two blues, one, Liam, an idealistic hero wannabe who orchestrated a breakout at his camp, and Chubs, a geek who is the one to usually point out their stupid ideas. There’s also Zu, a ten-year-old yellow who the others look after and who saves the day a few times. The budding romance between Ruby and Liam was slow and believable. There was no ridiculous instant attraction (which would have been all the more ridiculous in the setting since Ruby had spent most of her six years in the camp segregated from the boys), and no making (overly) stupid decisions because of their love.
For someone whose education stopped at grade four and who was not exposed to any TV, books, movies or other pop-culture for the past six years, Ruby knew way too much. Aside from a few pop-culture references (which I didn’t object to coming from the other characters who’d spent much more time on the outside than she did), she knew far too much about rock music. What ten year old has enough of an appreciation of Led Zeppelin, the Doors and the Who to still remember what they are six years later? There were some appropriate gaps in her knowledge (she didn’t know how to drive, couldn’t read maps) but generally I felt that she knew too much for her circumstances.
The story moved too slowly for my liking, however. The writing was technically fine and the prose was mostly above average so that I didn’t feel the urge to skip paragraphs. However, the story dragged. At almost 500 pages it was unnecessarily long. There were a few definite sections of not much happening that could definitely have been compressed, especially one part where it was inevitable that things were going to end badly, but they took rather a long time doing so (perhaps to lure the reader into a false sense of security? It didn’t work). It was the prose and the emotional ending which pushed this book up an extra half-star for me.
Ultimately, Darkest Minds wasn’t a terrible book. I know I’ve criticised it a lot, but that’s because it was the sort of book where I could clearly pinpoint what didn’t work for me. Being the first of a trilogy (according to wiki), it doesn’t quite stand alone. The story is not complete, there are questions left unanswered (like, why wasn’t the rest of the world affected?) and characters whose fates are unknown. However, for the first of a YA trilogy, it stands alone better than some. The main arc of the story is complete and we are not left with a cliffhanger. I recommend it to anyone looking for a meatier/longer YA book than average. Or perhaps to someone sick of ultra-high-stakes dystopias (although I don’t promise that the stakes won’t be raised in the sequels). It’s definitely not a quick read fluff book.
4 / 5 stars
Published: January 2013 (should already be in Aussie shops), HarperCollins AU
Series: Darkest Minds, book 1 of 3
Format read: eARC
Source: Courtesy of the publisher, via NetGalley
via Blogger http://bit.ly/UghntO
What’s Left of Me by Kat Zhang
What’s Left of Me is young author Kat Zhang’s debut novel. It’s just come out (October) from Harper Collins and a review copy was provided to me by the publisher.
What’s Left of Me is set in a world where everyone is born with two minds in one body. The parents name both children and then, at around the age of six or seven, one of the minds will prove to be dominant and will take over sole control of the body. This is called settling and, in the Americas (ruled by a single president after much warring), it happens to everybody. Or almost everybody. Eva and Addie never settled. They pretended to, so that they wouldn’t be taken away from their parents to a hospital to fix them. Now in highschool, with Addie the dominant mind and Eva, the point of view character, in the background, they try not to get noticed so that no one will suspect their secret.
At first I didn’t really buy this as a dystopian novel. For most of the country, it’s not really a dystopia. Mostly, it felt like our world, with democracy and everything, but with an alternate history past. Even the fact that everyone believes hybrids like Eva and Addie need to be institutionalised and fixed didn’t strike me as particularly… un-real world-ish. From the point of view of the society, Eva/Addie are mentally ill for not settling and trying to fix and fearing people like them isn’t wildly different to the way the psychiatric system works (or has worked in the past) in the real world.
So it wasn’t until about half way through that I became convinced that, OK, maybe we can call this dystopian. It was mainly the structure of the climax of this (first book in a trilogy) and the hints for the sequels that did it (and some spoilery world building helped). To me, at it’s heart, What’s Left of Me is a classic science fictional “what if” story, wrapped up in the trappings of modern YA dystopia. What if every body contained two minds? We see some of the ramifications of this question in What’s Left of Me with very obviously more left to come in the future books.
I enjoyed reading this book a lot. I was impressed with how well it was crafted and how fascinating the ideas were. The blurb, in my opinion, did nothing for it, making it seem a bit paranormal or evoking ideas of ghosts. It’s not paranormal. No one has magic powers. It’s down to Earth, high concept science fiction. And it’s great.
I highly recommend what’s left of me to fans of YA and to fans of What If science fiction who aren’t predisposed to disliking the YA trappings. I am eagerly awaiting the next book in the series.
4.5 / 5 stars
The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa
The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa grew on me as I read. It started well, but I couldn’t help but feel knowing the premise, as described in the blurb, detracted from the surprise of events near the start. However, this feeling quickly passed and by the time I finished, my overwhelming reaction was AWESOME.
The setting for The Immortal Rules reminded me of a cross between I Am Legend and the alternate Buffy universe ruled by vampires. In The Immortal Rules, Vampires have always existed on the fringes of human society but when a plague threatens to wipe out humanity, they step in and take measures to preserve their food source. The resultant norm has the main character, Allison, living in a city where humans are branded and required to submit to blood “donations” regularly. Infected rabids are kept out by the city wall. Rabids are the result of the plague and are something like zombies with some vampiric elements. Compare with the reanimated dead vampires vs the live undead vampires in I Am Legend.
The start of the book feels like a YA dystopia more than anything else. If I hadn’t read the blurb, I would have expected the standard dystopian arc of: 1. identify societal issues 2. revolution! However, that isn’t where the story goes, at least not in any conventional sense. If I’ve whet your appetite and you haven’t yet read a blurb for this book, you could do worse than to stop reading this review now and go pick up a copy. If you don’t mind not being surprised for a development near the start (or you’ve already read the blurb), then keep reading.
Instead of the story taking place in Allison’s home city as she overthrows the vampires or something like that, disaster strikes and Allison finds herself turned into the very thing she despises; a vampire. The story then goes off in another direction as she is forced to deal with being a monster and loosing everything from her human life. And forced to deal with how humans now see her, judging her based on what she is not who she is, despite any intentions she might have.
She’s a pretty independent, competent and compassionate character that I very much enjoyed reading. The secondary characters all complement her well. I like that Kagawa included annoying characters to antagonise Allison semi-benignly (as in, not just actual ‘bad guys’) and rub the reader up the wrong way. People fearing/hating her when they learn she’s a vampire is a prime example, but there were also personality clashes between Allison and other characters which added depth to the story.
It’s been a while since I’ve read a novel from a vampire’s first person perspective (unless you count the last part of the Twilight saga, which I don’t). Possibly not since Anne Rice. It was also a nice change to read about a female main character struggling with being a vampire and what that might mean for relationships (although any romantic aspects don’t dominate the story) rather than having the genders swapped as seems to be more common. Another nice thing was a lack of white-washing in this novel. Despite being set in the former US, Allison is of Japanese descent, other prominent characters are brown and black and there is, generally, a mix. Really the only white-washing is the cover because that girl is not Japanese.
Structurally, this did not end up reading like a conventional YA novel, despite starting like one. First, it’s longer — just over 500 printed pages — and it’s in four parts which have pretty distinct minor story arcs of their own. The overall arc is her journey and isn’t event-centred (not the revolution kind of event, anyway). Stylistically it felt like a fantasy novel that happened to have teenagers and vampires and so forth rather than a YA vampire novel. I think that reflects a difference in style to other (much shorter!) YA vampire or dystopian novels I’ve read recently. (They’ve all been and felt like quick reads, which this was not.) While it’s a book 1, I expect the subsequent books to continue in more of a fantasy style than a YA dystopia trilogy style.
The other thing I really enjoyed was the cinematic quality of many of the scenes. The descriptions were vivid, especially the action scenes, without dragging out. That and the nature of the setting and story made me feel like this story would work really well on the screen. Maybe as a TV series, since it’s too long for a movie. It would be awesome.
I highly recommend The Immortal Rules to anyone with even a passing interest vampires, fantasy or YA. I think this is a book that will appeal to a fairly broad audience. I will definitely be reading the next book when it becomes available.
5 / 5 stars
Thumped by Megan McCafferty
Thumped by Megan McCafferty is the sequel and conclusion to Bumped. To give you an idea of the world, I include an adapted version of my LibraryThing review of Bumped from when I read it last year:
Bumped is set in a near future where a fertility virus means that people become infertile at around the age of 18. To keep the human race from being wiped out, American culture has become obsessed with teenage pregnancy (and trying to get the highest birth rates in the world).
I’ve tagged the book as dystopian YA SF, which it is, but I think it would appeal to non-SF readers too. The SF-y elements are significantly less prominent than, for example in The Hunger Games or Divergent.
Mostly, this is a book about teenagers coping with a strange world in which they are the only ones that can ensure the existence of the next generation. In different ways, the youth are encouraged/brain-washed into reproducing as much as they can, ether by being professional surrogate (or “pro surrogettes”) or by making amateur babies with their boy/girlfriends.
The story follows twin sisters, Melody raised in the mainstream (American) society, and Harmony raised by conservative, Amish-like Christians. Through their two perspectives (alternating first person) we learn about the world bit by bit. I liked the short chapters which kept the story moving rapidly and gave a feeling of simultaneity for the two plot lines. I also thought the language and slang, particularly of the mainstream sister, was spot on and added authenticity to world building.
Overall, I highly recommend it, although some aspects of the sex-culture could irk some readers.
Thumped picked up around eight and a half months after Bumped left off and is a very quick read; I got through it in an evening.
The overtly religious aspects of Harmony got under my skin less in Thumped than in book 1, largely because she spent a lot of this book questioning things. However, I did feel that the book was too short. When I was half or two thirds of the way through, I was wondering how it could possible wrap up all the issues it raised in the pages remaining (in my Random House UK copy, the story ends on page 290). The answer turned out to be: rapidly. It was resolved quickly but I didn’t feel like much was left hanging. I wouldn’t mind seeing a sequel, perhaps with different characters and less fast-paced because I’m curious as to how the world turns out. Unlike more conventional YA dystopias (like The Hunger Games, Divergent, etc) this duology does not follow the formula of
- identify massive problems with society
- enact/take part in a revolution.
If anything it ends at 1 and merely hints at a non-violent version of 2 to come. Which is a nice change.
Another thing I’d like to mention is that the issues with the world are kind of obvious from the start. It’s even obvious why brainwashing advertising kids into making babies seems like a good idea. But I got sucked into the world enough that, while I agreed with Melody’s reservations, it wasn’t until she articulated the situation at the end that all the ramifications really sunk in.
So Thumped was a nice conclusion to Bumped. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much, but I think that’s mainly because the novelty of the world-concept had worn off. (For the record, I still enjoyed the slang but I felt there was either less of it or I had become immune. Except for “for seriously” because d’uh it should be “for serious”.) On reflection, I think the two books could have been released in one volume (it needn’t even have been a very long volume). Despite the time gap, there were a lot of loose ends in Bumped and they very much feel like one story split into two volumes.
Overall, I would definitely recommend this series to people who like YA, high-concept dystopias, or interesting slang. And if you’ve read and not hated Bumped, you really can’t not read the second half of the story in Thumped.
4 / 5 stars
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld is dystopian YA set in a future USA where everyone gets plastic surgery at 16 to make them look a) pretty and b) all very similar. Pre-op teens are called uglies because their, y’know, normal-looking faces and bodies are considered ugly by the very precise beauty standards of the society. Post-ops are known as pretties (with additional qualifiers for age later on). And, of course, uglies and pretties don’t mix. Once children reach age 12, they leave their (pretty) parents’ homes and movie into an dorm with other uglies.
Honestly, when I was reading I couldn’t help picturing pretties as those horrific over-plastic surgeried people. You know, the ones that look alarmingly plastic? So I couldn’t quite see the personal appeal of becoming a pretty, but it was quite plausible that the characters in the book were desperate for it. All the brainwashing at school (“It’s biology! We’re programmed to like pretty people.”) would have helped too. Basically, the society Westerfeld created was plausible and, while I wouldn’t say “only in America” it did seem the sort of thing much more likely to eventuate in the US than, say, Europe or Australia. Just saying.
The main character, Tally, is left alone on the ugly side of the river after her best friend is turned pretty three months before her (since he is three months older). She is desperate to join him. But then she meets Shay, who doesn’t want to become a pretty and who thinks that maybe staying ugly wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Shay knows of a special city/village called the Smoke, where uglies can live happily away from the watching eyes of the city and never have to turn pretty. After they become friends, Shay runs away to the Smoke not long before she’s due to turn pretty. Tally is again left alone but, after an encounter with the scary-looking specials, Tally is forced to follow.
The middle half-ish of Uglies was a bit predictable plot-wise. It wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t in any way surprising for a dystopian YA novel. On the other hand, the writing was good and the characters and world building were good, which made up for it. The real pay off, however, was the ending which took the story in an interesting new direction and set up the next book in the series. (I don’t know if you can see clearly enough in that cover photo, but the book titles go Uglies, Pretties, Specials, Extras.)
The one thing that bothered me was that it wasn’t as anti-beauty standard as I was hoping. The pretties were creepy and similar-looking and had way more surgery than would be considered healthy in our society (although it’s set in the future and medical science has advanced so that surprisingly complicated surgeries don’t take very long and have very little recovery time associated with them). And yes, the book does carry the message that you can be beautiful just the way you are (as you would hope it would!). However, I thought this was undermined a bit when it was revealed that the society was creepier and more controlling than it appeared on the surface. I know this is de rigueur for dystopias, but it still felt like it detracted from the “you don’t need plastic surgery to look normal” message.
I definitely want to read the rest of the series, but it may be some time before I get to it, thanks to a self-imposed book-buying ban. I recommend Uglies to anyone who likes YA, dystopias or science fiction.
4 / 5 stars
