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Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is an insightful, dystopian novel with timeless metaphors. The protagonist, Guy Montag, is a fireman whose job is to burn books in a world where literature is prohibited. Montag has never questioned the book burnings and is content with his life, including his boring wife, who spends her days watching her television “family”. Until he meets Clarisse, the unconventional neighbor who leaves Montag with more questions than he can keep up with.
Uglies by Scott Westerfield is a dystopian that follows a girl named Tally Youngblood in a world that revolves around beauty and peer pressure. In Uglyville, everyone undergoes a procedure upon their sixteenth birthday to become “pretty”, which is essentially a cosmetic surgery that imbues traits of conventional attractiveness into the teenagers.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is a dystopian book that takes place in a country known as Panem, where the Capitol has oppressive control over the twelve other districts. Katniss Everdeen, a teenager from District 12, volunteers to take her sister's place in the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games are a fight to the death involving teenagers from each district. The story follows Katniss as she experiences the Hunger Games.
Uglies is a dystopian novel set in a society where everyone gets a mandatory cosmetic surgery at 16 to become a “Pretty.” The story follows Tally Youngblood, a 15-year-old girl eagerly waiting her transformation. However, she starts doubting the system when she meets Shay, a rebellious girl who resists the operation and introduces Tally to the Smoke, a hidden city of people who reject societal beauty standards.
Scythe by Neal Shusterman takes place in a world where humanity has conquered natural forms of death with the help of a godlike artificial intelligence known as the Thunderhead. To prevent Earth from overpopulating, an organization known as the Scythes formed to “glean” citizens at random. The story follows two teenagers, Citra Terranova and Rowan Damisch, who are selected by Scythe Faraday to train as his apprentices. Neither have a choice in the matter, but must compete for the title of scythe.
The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken takes place in a world where a virus called Idiopathic Adolescent Acute Neurodegeneration wiped out the majority of American children, the ones who survived got psychic powers. The government created “rehabilitation” camps for the children, which in reality were just work camps to hold them in one place. The main character, Ruby Daly, had the power of mind control but convinced the person testing her that she had a different power.
After the Flame Deluge and the Great Simplification, humanity is left with no awareness of its history or scientific achievements. A simple order of monks, worshipping the Saint Leibowitz hundreds of years after his death stumble upon some documents that might bring light as to what the world was like before, and open the door to new scientific discoveries.
Katniss and Peeta have just won the 74th Hunger Games with the help of their mentor Haymitch and want to live peacefully. However, they have become targets of the Capital due to their suicide attempt during the games that sparked rebellion in some of the Districts. Despite their efforts, more and more uprisings occur. President Snow decides to have the next Hunger Game tributes be chosen from the current ring of victors. Now Peeta and Katniss are up against their fiercest competitors yet with so much more on the line.
They Both Die at the End is an emotional rollercoaster that explores life, death and the power of human connection. With its beautifully created characters and thought-provoking beliefs, this novel is both heartbreaking and inspiring. The story follows two teenagers, Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio who live in a world where people are notified on the day they will die. They both receive alerts on the same day.
The Giver by Lois Lowry is about a society with citizens who have no memories of its past. The main character, Jonas, is chosen to be the receiver of memory, which means he receives the memories that none of the other characters receive. The more memories he receives, the more he realizes how messed up his community is.
