Book plea!

[eibbil_libbie]

Not for me for...DJ, believe it or not.

Seriously. We came home from seeing The Hunger Games and he decided he wanted to read it. And he did...in a week. Then he asked me to help him get a Fire because he hated carrying books around. I went half with him and boom. He's devouring books like a termite in a wood pile.

Yeah, you read that right. DJ. The gamer.

So! My problem is that I'm running out of things to recommend for him. Right now he's eating up dystopian/post-apocalyptic stuff.

To date, he has read:

Collins' The Hunger Games
Roth's Divergent/Insurgent
Aguirre's Enclave
Lu's Legend

And I think he's starting either Wells' Partials or Dashner's Maze Runner tonight (he's started reading the free samples first - if the first chapter doesn't pull him, he won't continue...and the first victim of the no-pull was Price's Starters.)


Okay, flist. What have you got? Older, newer, hit me up.

Comments

[imaginarycircus]

That's a hard category for me because beyond The Hunger Games I really don't know. I'm much better with YA and Fantasy (to a certain extent).

He might try first chapters of The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials) or Charles DeLint's stuff? I'd start with The Onion Girl.

What about American Gods by Neil Gaiman or Neverwhere?

Good Omens by Pratchett and Gaiman?

These could all be way off base, but worth looking at.

[eibbil_libbie]

He's not so much on fantasy - and yeah, I'm the same because I mostly read fantasy with a heavy romance bent. So I'm left with ...um!!

Good Omens he's read a few times (he heard me giggling over it and asked to borrow it when I was done.) He's also read Hitchhikers, a few King books, and Game of Thrones (first book) but stalled out on the second.

I'll mention the Gaiman series tho!

[pegkerr]

Alexei Panshin's Rite of Passage might be a possibility.

[tryslora]

That's one of my top three books EVER that I rec to teens all the time. Still trying to find my copy to make my own teen read it.

[rainpuddle13]

Battle Royale by Koushun Takami. It's like THG, but better.

[rainpuddle13]

The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. It's a very guy thing (I don't like it and I'm a huge King fan).

[heinous_bitca]

I can ask my husband tomorrow for some dystopian recommendations. He loves post-apocalyptic fiction.

Sadly, the one book I can think of off-hand to recommend is not available in e-book format, and it's out of print so you have to get it used. And right now, it looks like it's going for some bigger bucks than I ever paid for it (that book would be Emergence by David R. Palmer).

[heinous_bitca]

Husband says Ready Player One is a great book for him!

[alltheircrimesarejust]

Graceling by Kristin Cashore
The Uglies and Leviathan and Peeps series by Scott Westerfeld
Modern Tales of Faerie by Holly Black
Basilisk by N.M. Browne
There was a possibly quite interesting looking book I saw at the store called Cinder by Marissa Meyer that looks to be some kind of a Cyberpunk Cinderella?

[jacyevans]

Hmmm... for post-apocalyptic, I would highly recommend The Passage by Justin Cronin. Fair warning - it's rather long, but the pay off is well worth it. I loved it.

Also The Reapers Are the Angels by Alden Bell.

[jacyevans]

Forgot to add that The Passage is the first in an as-of-yet unfinished trilogy (the second is due out in Sept.) Don't know if that's a deal breaker or not.

[bekkio]

Patrick Ness - Chaos Walking Triology

[bekkio]

It's dystopian YA SciFi btw. Fun read!

[eudaimon]

Best. Books. Ever. Seriously. I cannot speak highly enough of these books.

[smilie117]

*looks through lists of books read*

Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan, Behemoth, and Goliath (series is done).

Melina Marchetta's Finnikin of the Rock and sequel Froi of the Exiles (the third and last in series is due out spring of next year).

Jonathan Maberry's Rot & Ruin and sequel Dust & Decay (the third and last in series is due out this fall).

Paolo Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker and a sequel where it's set in the same world just came out this month but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

So those I would put into the dystopian category for sure, I probably have read others that would fall into that category so just let me know if you're looking for more and I can revisit again what I've read to see. :D

[smilie117]

Oh wait, I forgot another: Catherine Fisher's Incarceron and sequel Sapphique (series is done).

Sorry for all the posts and deletes and reposts as I try to correct closing tags and copy/paste mistakes. :P

[eudaimon]

Seconding Shipbreaker, too.

[stinaleigh]

Not dystopian, but he might like Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga. I think all the e-books are available at Baen.com.

[heinous_bitca]

I almost recommended this!

As a young boy, he may not find Cordelia's Honor (the compilation of Shards of Honor and Barrayar) as compelling, so I'm going to go against my usual recommendations and say if he sounds at least vaguely interested in these books, start with Warrior's Apprentice.

[tempusfrangit]

Chaos Walking Trilogy
Tomorrow When The War Began
Battle Royale
Graceling
1984
A Brave New World
Feed
Gone
mmmmmmmm there are probably more but i just woke up.

[zorb]

How is he on sci-fi? Looking at my shelves, I'm thinking Ender's Game, Neuromancer, or David Brin's books. Oh, Sanderson's Mistborn series should work, too.

[tryslora]

Gods, I've read so much dystopia lately...

Ashes, by Ilsa Bick. Terribly frustrating ending but OMG the story that starts out sounding like a girl with a brain tumor and ends up being a zombie apocalypse is AMAZING. Can't wait for the next one.

I just took The Knife of Letting Go by Patrick Ness out but haven't read it yet.

Many of the dystopias I've read have had female protagonists, so I should ask about that before recommending more.

Oh, and still a female protagonist, but going back into the classic, try "Rite of Passage" by Alexei Panshin if it's available. It's about teens coming of age on a spaceship where teens become adults by being dumped on a world and having to survive on their own. It's one of my top books.

LMK on the female protagonist thing and I'll go through my list of recent reads and see if there's anything there that's dystopia/post apocalypse that might suit. There is something... on the tip of my tongue... but I can't remember it now. ARGH.

Whee for the reading!! My son prefers reading on the iPad over books, too, so I can totally see the use of the Fire.

[eibbil_libbie]

Female protagonist not a problem at all. Hit me.

[shadowhawck]

Well if he is enjoying post-apocalyptic then there is

David Brin's "The Postman" (The Movie of the same name, well has the same name) is older

S.M. Stirling's Nantucket series(listed in order): "Island in the Sea of Time", "Against the Tide of Years", "On the Oceans of Eternity". Is an alternate history series, namely "Modern" Nantucket is thrown into the Bronze Age. I mention it because it is linked to a larger series that is much more PA which is

S.M. Stirling's Emberverse series, two Cycles for a total of 8 books so far with a 9th this fall and the final projected for late next year. The first Cycle is 3 books long, starting with "Dies the Fire", "The Protector's War", "A Meeting at Corvallis". The second Cycle is set some 22 years after the start of the first and deals with the Groups and children seen in the first cycle.

-Shadowhawck

[heinous_bitca]

Oh yes, the S.M. Stirling books would be good for a variant post-apocalyptic book. Also 1632, maybe? Not dystopian, but alternate history that might be intriguing if you like Stirling.

[tryslora]

Okay, since I had to come home because Chick has a stomach bug and needed to be picked up from school, I've hit my to-read pile for suggestions.

The Dead by Charlie Higson. I think this is zombies. I took it out because Chick LOVES zombies (thus the zombies + basketball novel which is ALL HER FAULT). Chick read this one SUPER fast on the trip home from VA, and enjoyed it.

The Chronicles of Nick (a series) from Sherilyn Kenyon. I bought these but have been buried in library books since so I haven't read them, but Chick devoured them. Boy discovers the dark side of the world and has to start fighting evil.

[eibbil_libbie]

The Chronicles of Nick (a series) from Sherilyn Kenyon

CoN is an offshoot from Kenyon's Dark Hunter series and I've read all 21 of them (so far)...many of them twice. I actually play adult Nick in the game we talked about =)

PS for Chick - she might like the Dark Hunter series, but they are for grownups so she does describe sex and there is a strong sexual content to them even if the language isn't as explicit as, say, the porn that shall not be named. But the characters from CoN are in the series - Tabitha, Kyrian, Acheron, Simi...CoN is kind of an alternate universe to the Dark Hunters.

God I wish I'd known she'd read CoN when I was up there. I'd have talked her ear off :D

[bad_influence]

Man, I feel lame for having nothing to contribute here. My brain is blanking on YA dystopian and keeps just coming up with 'boy' middle-grade action books. That and random fantasy.