my3books

I just discovered a brand new blog called my3books (www.my3books.com), in which a book rep named John Mesjak spotlights 3 books at a time. He represents a lot of publishers and sells thousands of books per year, and he'll be focusing on the ones that he considers remarkable:

"I’ve been looking for a way to pull out just a few of those books at a time - to restore a more human-readable scale to the process - and focus on some of the really great ones. So here begins a series of posts that will each zoom in on three books - three from the same publisher, or three on a theme, or three by the same author, whatever."

I've added www.my3books.com to the blog feed (at the bottom right of the sidebar) but I'll also try to mention any great posts when I see them. For now, here's my own little list of three great Young Adult dystopian science fiction books.

What is dystopian science fiction? According to Wikipedia, dystopia is: "the vision of a society in which conditions of life are miserable and characterized by poverty, oppression, war, violence, disease, pollution, and/or the abridgement of human rights, resulting in widespread unhappiness, suffering, and other kinds of pain." Dystopian science fiction applies these conditions to a future version of the world, usually including some technology or social/political structure that could conceivably be in our future.


Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen hardcover, ISBN 978-0765319852, $17.95)
Seventeen-year-old Marcus knows all the tricks to bypass his school's security, but when San Francisco is hit by a terrorist attack he finds himself in Gitmo-by-the-Bay under suspicion of terrorist activities. Marcus must decide whether to believe in the system or fight it--and face the consequences. This is a frighteningly real look at the not-so-distant future of technology, seen through the eyes of a school-skipping, video-game-playing techno-geek.


The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic hardcover, ISBN 978-0439023481, $17.99)
Readers of this blog know that this is my favorite book of all time. Katniss Everdeen has been supporting her family for years by hunting and trading illegally. When she becomes District 12's female tribute to the Hunger Games, she knows she must be the lone survivor or her family will fall apart. But winning the Hunger Games means the deaths of the other tributes. This book is full of non-stop action. It is an emotional rollercoaster. It is the best book EVER.


Skinned by Robin Wasserman (Simon Pulse paperback forthcoming, ISBN 978-1416974499, $9.99)
Most dystopian science fiction is action-packed and full of technical jargon. This one isn't. It's more of a moral and ethical look at the future of medicine, and how far we will eventually go to keep our loved ones in our lives. Lia wakes up in the hospital with vivid memories of the car accident that should have killed her. A few days go by before she realizes that, in a way, it did--her brain has been scanned and downloaded into a mechanical body that looks only vaguely like her old one. Is she human? Is she still Lia? These are questions that she must ask herself, even as her friends and family are asking them too.