Ever since the Twilight Saga hit it big, it's not unusual to find an adult reading Young Adult (YA) fiction, even if they don't have a young adult living in their house. After a Thanksgiving holiday devouring the Twilight books, I discovered There was some great YA fiction to be read. So at the recommendation of another avid reader friend, and a fresh supply of three new books from her, I dug in for a few days.
I started off with Across The Universe by Beth Davis. The premise of this novel is that Earth has gone, or will be going to crap and a team of scientists determines that there is likely a habitable planet in across the universe 300 years away. They build a HUGE spaceship called the Godspeed and then cryogenically freeze select people for their knowledge to make the trip. A group of people are also selected to run the ship and they procreate and such, in order to make sure there will be someone around to keep the shipnrunning for the 300 years. The frozen people are a mix of people specializing in medicine, science, military etc. Our protagoinist, Amy is frozen so she can travel with her parents. En route (250+ years, she is unfrozen, potentially so the process would kill her. Once awake and aware of where and when she is, she is determined to discover who did it. As she experiences life on Godspeed, she discovers that life is very controlled by one person, The Eldest. His protoge, The Elder finds Amy when she was unfrozen and breaks rank to help her. While the premise is interesting and unfortunately not too hard to imagine, I found myself a little bored at times. I would classify this as the easiest read among the three and not my favorite.
I followed with the book Matched by, Ally Condie. In this book the government took over society before we killed our planet, but in the process took away free choice and makes all humanities decisions for them. As the title relates, at 17 the government "matches" people with their optimal mate. This is shared with the teens at an elaborate banquet where they see their matches on screen, typically someone from another city that they have never met. In th case of Cassia, her best friend Zander is selected to be her mate. This is a very rare occurrence. But when Cassia goes to read her matches "info card" a photo of another good friend of hers, Ky, is flashed before her as her match. As Cassia comes to terms with what might have been, she realizes how muchnshe is missing because of how the government micromanages everyone's lives, down tothe clothes they wear, the music they can listen to, even their free time. While I feel this book is more geared to the YA female audience, with a love story at it's core, the author paints a bleak picture of what could happen if we gave up our free will in order to have a "perfect" world.
Finally I rounded out my YA fiction run with Incarceron by Catherine Fisher. This book is set in the future, I think! It is a tale of two worlds, starting with Claudia's, whose father is the warden of Incarceron, a prison. It is another story where those in power decided how everyone should live. In this case they thought life was better in the "old" days, like the 18th century. While there is technology behind the scenes, the people in Claudia's relm live as they did way back when. For a while we follow Claudia along side Finn, a boy thought to have been "born" in the prison. Claudia is try to avoid her arranged marriage with a pompous prince who has turned Claudia off. As Claudia and Finn's story intersect, through a special key that both Claudia and Finn come to posses, Claudia is convinced Finn is actually the dead prince she was originally engaged to. She begins to plan for Finn's escape and hers from the arranged marriage. The science behind this book is interesting, enough so that I have the sequel, Sapphique on reserve at the library.
That's all for now...expect a review of New York to Dallas by JD Robb next.
Happy Reading!
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