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.

[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).

[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.

[bekkio]

Patrick Ness - Chaos Walking Triology

[bekkio]

It's dystopian YA SciFi btw. Fun read!

[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.

[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

[stinaleigh]

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

[eudaimon]

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

[eudaimon]

Seconding Shipbreaker, too.

[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.

[heinous_bitca]

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

[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.

[eibbil_libbie]

Female protagonist not a problem at all. Hit me.

[tryslora]

Some of these have stronger romantic elements than others. I'll try to include caveats here...

Matched, by Ally Condie - Dystopian world where The Society controls everything, including who you are Matched to as you become an adult. Main Character is Matched to her childhood best friend... except things aren't that simple and things start happening which make her question The Society and the stranglehold they have on the world. Loved it, can't wait until Crossed comes up on my Hold list at the ebook library.

all these things i've done, by Gabrielle Zevin -- again, dystopian world, and the main character's family is in the illegal chocolate business. Interesting future mob sort of story, loved it, first of a series/trilogy.

Bother, there's something I just read and haven't recorded yet... Oh yes, the book is Shatter Me and I can't recall the author off the top of my head. Starts off with a girl in an insane asylum and a very off-kilter narrative and it's brilliant and sucked me in and wouldn't let me go. The dystopian details are so subtle at the start because she has been locked in a room for THREE YEARS and this has had an effect on how she thinks to herself, and thus, her narrative.

All these mini reviews are er, well, coloured by my potential poor memory, so take that as you will.

The other things I've been reading are either mainstream of paranormal/urban fantasy (all YA). I love them, but don't know if they'd appeal to DJ.

Also, I just started following the blog http://booksyalove.blogspot.com/ and have been pulling recs from my own library's listing http://staffpicks.eastgreenbushlibrary.org/category/books-for-young-adults/. I'm all over the web lately on YA books, and adult books appropriate for YA. OH. Speaking of, try out The Universal Mirror by Gwen Perkins. It's not dystopia, and it's not YA, and maybe you want to read it first (I think you might like it). It was free a few days back, but not now. The author's a friend, and I loved it.

From the crosses from adult to YA, try out The Skewed Throne by Joshua Palmatier. It's fantasy, and it's REALLY good stuff. I'm sure there are other adult books I could recommend that would be perfect, but I'm not coming up with them right now. Has he read Ender's Game?

[tryslora]

Oh AND, our library has an ebook lending program which has Kindle books. I highly recommend checking yours for this program because it's WONDERFUL being able to take a book and then just say "NOPE NOT FOR ME" and check it back in early.

[tryslora]

And there was a modern dystopia sleeping beauty book I read but it was apparently before I started recording because it is not on my list... bother. It was brilliant, about a world that went haywire while a girl was put into cold sleep by her parents and forgotten... until she's found by a boy exploring where he shouldn't be going, and she wakes up into this world gone nuts. Great characters and world building.