Post-apocalyptic adventures? With librarians? Sign me up. Ever since I heard about the new Mercenary Librarians series, I knew I wanted to get my hands on it. And with 2020 being, well, 2020, post-apocalyptic fiction felt very on point for me right now. While not perfect, Deal With the Devil is a strong series opener…
If you’re a fan of young adult dystopian novels, you’re probably very familiar with some of Veronica Roth’s work. Her latest offering, Chosen Ones, is pretty different from her previous books, most notably, because it’s aimed at an adult audience – although there’s nothing I’d consider inappropriate for younger readers. It also uses a trope…
In the totalitarian world of Unnatural, the humanoid animal citizens have a responsibility to propagate their species by entering a monogamous relationship with, and only with, a member of the opposite-sex of their own animal species. Anything else is, well, unnatural, and punishable, first by rehabilitation and, on a second offense, by death. If a…
I put off writing this review while I tried to unravel my feelings about the characters, the plot, and its execution. I was hooked right from the get-go and based on the strength of Szpara’s writing, I couldn’t put the book down. So it was something of a disappointment when I retrospectively learned that although…
Deathless Divide is the eagerly anticipated sequel to the bestselling, engrossing Dread Nation. Picking up immediately after the events of the first novel, this story (and therefore this review) contains serious spoilers for that book. After escaping the fall of Summerland, Jane McKeene, Kate (Katherine) Deveraux and their small band of followers have a simple…
The premise of Halpern and Kujawinski’s YA dystopian novel Nightfall is amazing, and it’s why I picked it up. The inhabitants of a certain island are preparing to leave it, because on their world, day and night exist in fourteen-year cycles. The fourteen years of Day are drawing to an end, the sun sinks, frost…
Did you read The Handmaid’s Tale and think it just wasn’t bleak enough? If so, have I got a recommendation for you. The Slave and the Free, by Suzy McKee Charnas, is set in a world where women aren’t just considered men’s property. Here, women aren’t even seen as human. The Slave and the Free…
A gun-slinging young woman battling magic-wielders and fellow gunman alike in a wild west setting on an altered historical timeline. Count us in, right? An Easy Death promises everything I could ever want in a book. It only kind of delivers, though. In this first entry of Charlaine Harris’ new Gunnie Rose series, Lizbeth Rose,…
Severance is the hotly anticipated end of days tale by newbie author Ling Ma. It’s a provocative look at the future which shows the dangers of getting caught in a meaningless present and being obsessed with a sentimental view of the past. This story shifts back and forth in time between chapters but for the…
If you read only one YA novel this year, make it Dread Nation. Part Zombie Land, part Django Unchained, channeling a bit of The Hunger Games and also something wholly original, this is a tale of what happens when the undead rise while America’s race war rages. The Civil War is over. But not because…