Weekly Reads: Allegiant

Allegiant is the MUCH anticipated penultimate book in the Divergent trilogy.  If you haven't read Divergent and Insurgent, what the hell are you waiting for??  But seriously?  What?  Folks are saying it is on par with the Hunger Games obsession, and I'm inclined to agree with them.

Being the dystopian junkie that I am, I cannot wait to get my eyeballs on this book to find out how it ends.  And if you haven't read it yet, you might actually be in luck, because Roth's writing style doesn't really remind you what went on in the previous novels, so it's almost ideal to read them back to back to back.  There were numerous times in Insurgent (book 2) that I had to sit and think about what happened in Divergent.  It doesn't help that I read so many books with similar themes and sometimes it's hard to keep them straight.  :/  But perhaps Roth will be nice again and provide us with a "refresher" of the previous books via her blog.  Click here for Divergent refresher.

Summary of Divergent from goodreads (because I don't want to have any spoilers for those who HAVEN'T started from the beginning, only shame.  Lots and lots of shame.... jk):

In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is--she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are--and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, Tris also learns that her secret might help her save the ones she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

Weekly Reads: MaddAddam

I read the first book in the Maddaddam Trilogy while I was in college.  Oryx and Crake was the first dystopian adult book I had ever read.  As a child, growing up, the Giver was my all time favorite book, and to read a "grown up" book with as much excitement and appeal threw me for a book nerd loop.  And thus, a dystopian junkie was born.  After graduating, I picked up The Year of the Flood because I had loved Oryx and Crake, not even realizing it was the sequel.  Derp.


Now, four long years later, the finale novel, MaddAddam, is being released September 3rd.  To say I'm excited for the conclusion is an understatement.  I may be person #1 on the library's hold list for it.  Not surprising.

A summary from goodreads:

Months after the Waterless Flood pandemic has wiped out most of humanity, Toby and Ren have rescued their friend Amanda from the vicious Painballers. They return to the MaddAddamite cob house, which is being fortified against man and giant Pigoon alike. Accompanying them are the Crakers, the gentle, quasi-human species engineered by the brilliant but deceased Crake. While their reluctant prophet, Jimmy -- Crake's one-time friend -- recovers from a debilitating fever, it's left to Toby to narrate the Craker theology, with Crake as Creator. She must also deal with cultural misunderstandings, terrible coffee, and her jealousy over her lover, Zeb.

Meanwhile, Zeb searches for Adam One, founder of the God's Gardeners, the pacifist green religion from which Zeb broke years ago to lead the MaddAddamites in active resistance against the destructive CorpSeCorps. Now, under threat of an imminent Painballer attack, the MaddAddamites must fight back with the aid of their newfound allies, some of whom have four trotters.

At the centre, is the extraordinary story of Zeb's past, which involves a lost brother, a hidden murder, a bear, and a bizarre act of revenge.