May is Dystopic
Dystopia,"a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding," is a hot genre right now. The Hunger Games has paved the way, so here are some other great titles to whet your appetite.
Imagine a world without love: a world where love is considered a disease. Amor deliria nervosa is the condition that brought about so much turmoil and pain. As The Book of Shh says, "The most dangerous sicknesses are those that make us believe we are well." That is the world that Lena lives in. Her procedure is mere days away, and she cannot wait for the cure that will rid her of the thing which killed her mother.
Her mother killed herself when the cure failed to work for her. After that, Lena came to live with her Aunt Carol and her family. In this safe space, she has grown up wanting to escape her mother's fate. In this world, the sexes are kept separate until they are "cured" on their 18th birthday. Before that, the cure can have disasterous effects. Finally, the day for her evaluation is here...
But it's interrupted by a stampede of renegade cows! She glimpses a boy above her watching the chaos, and laughing! Is he responsible for what happened? Another day, she and her best friend Hana go for a run, and happen to run into him. Alex is a guard for the facility. They have to watch themselves around him. He has the mark of the cure, so they don't need to be to careful...right?
When Hana sneaks out to go to an illegal concert, Lena refuses. She begins to feel guilty, and is compelled to meet her. Arriving to a house full of 500 kids, she is overwhelmed. She finds Hana, who is with a boy! And runs into Alex! Sparks are flying between them, and she can hardly believe that she is doing it, but she agrees to meet him again.
The more time they spend together, the more it seems clear that she is falling for him. The symptoms are clear: "preoccupation; racing thoughts; difficulty focusing; sweaty palms," (Oliver pg. 147, 2011). She is contracting amor deliria nervosa just like her mother. Meanwhile the date for her cure draws ever closer. The thing she most wanted is now her biggest fear.
Alex's biggest secret is yet to be revealed, as there is more to him that there appears. Lena is falling deeper and deeper in love with him. It seems impossible that something could come between them. As the fateful day approaches, can Lena and Alex find a way to be together? Great read for high school, especially fans of dystopia and romance. Well written prose, and interesting premise.
"Every beat of silence seems to stretch into an infinity, and I'm pretty sure Alex must think I'm a mute. But then he flicks a half-buried seashell out of the sand and hurls it into the ocean, and I realize he's not uncomfortable at all. After that I relax. I'm even glad for the silence. Sometimes I feel like if you just watch things, just sit still and let the world exist in front of you - sometimes I swear that just for a second time freezes and the world pauses in its tilt. Just for a second. And if you somehow found a way to live in that second, then you would live forever," (Oliver pg. 153, 2011).
Oliver, Lauren. (2011). Delirium. New York: Harper.
Pandemonium is pretty stellar too :)
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