Below is a list of several dystopian fiction books you may consider for our final novel study. Please explore the links in each title to find sample excerpts from each text. Why read these? You need to make sure you like the style of writing and also that you find the text easy to navigate and decode. Does the movie play in your head while you read? If not, it may be that this text is too hard.
Summaries and book and movie trailers are also available for some of the novels. And...most of these novels are part of a series. So if you like the first one, your summer reading choices for the beach will be easy to come by!
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Gone by Michael Grant
(You can explore the novel and read the first chapter by clicking on the link above.)
In the blink of an eye.
Everyone disappears.
Gone.
Everyone except for the young. Teens. Middle schoolers. Toddlers. But not a single adult. No teachers, no cops, no doctors, no parents. Gone, too, are the phones, internet, and television. There is no way to get help.
Hunger threatens. Bullies rule. A sinister creature lurks. Animals are mutating. And the teens themselves are changing, developing new talents—unimaginable, dangerous, deadly powers—that grow stronger by the day.
It's a terrifying new world. Sides are being chosen and war is imminent.
The first in a breathtaking saga about teens battling each other and their darkest selves, Gone is a page-turning thriller that will make you look at the world in a whole new way.
The City of Ember and The People of Sparks by Jeanne Duprau
(You can explore the first chapter of the novel by clicking on the link above.)
Lights shine in the city of Ember—but at the city limits the light ends, and darkness takes over. Out there in the Unknown Regions, the darkness goes on forever in all directions. Ember—so its people believe—is the only light in the dark world.
And now the lights are going out.
Is there a way to save the people of Ember? No one knows. But Lina Mayfleet has found a puzzling document, and Doon Harrow has made discoveries down in the Pipeworks. With these clues, they start their search.
I am Number Four by Pittacus Lore
(You can explore the novel and read the first chapter by clicking on the link above.)
Nine of us came here. We look like you. We talk like you. We live among you. But we are not you. We can do things you dream of doing. We have powers you dream of having. We are stronger and faster than anything you have ever seen. We are the superheroes you worship in movies and comic books—but we are real.
Our plan was to grow, and train, and become strong, and become one, and fight them. But they found us and started hunting us first. Now all of us are running. Spending our lives in shadows, in places where no one would look, blending in. we have lived among you without you knowing.
But they know.
They caught Number One in Malaysia.
Number Two in England.
And Number Three in Kenya.
They killed them all.
I am Number Four.
I am next.
The Giver by Lois Lowry
(You can read the first chapter by clicking on the link above.)
1994 Newbery Medal winner. Twelve-year-old Jonas lives in a seemingly ideal world. Not until he is given his life assignment as the Receiver does he begin to understand the dark secrets behind this fragile community.
The Giver is set to be released as a movie this fall. Read it before you see the movie!
The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
(You can explore the novel by clicking on the link above. Click here to read chapter 1 of The Scorpio Races.)
It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.
At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.
Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen.
Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
(You can explore the novel and read the first chapter by clicking on the link above.)
Everybody gets to be supermodel gorgeous. What could be wrong with that?
Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license - for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there.
But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all.
The choice Tally makes changes her world forever...
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