Annotated+Book+List


 * __ Annotated Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic Book List (with bonus) __**

This annotated book list is a collection of older classics and more current dystopian and post-apocalyptic literature that is suitable for young adults. We will be using it so that you can choose a book for your book club in your sophomore college prep level English class. In addition to this genre, I have thrown in Dan Brown's //Inferno// as a book choice because we have already read an excerpt from it in our unit, and it relates directly to our unit's theme. The theme of our unit deals with the ethical concerns of population control and the impact of human population growth on society and the Earth's environment. The dystopian and post-apocalyptic societies depicted in these novels are the author’s impressions about the possible result or the cause and effect of our theme. These novels show what can happen to a society that is devastated by disease, allows its member to continue to deplete the earth's resources, lets the population go unchecked, or experiences a cataclysmic event. My hope is that through these satires and futuristic depictions of societies not unlike our own, you will gain a better understanding of not only the author's message through critical analysis, but the ethical and moral ramifications of a controlling government, complacent citizens, and the disrespect people can show for the planet.


 * Anderson, M. T. //Feed//. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick, 2002. Print. **

For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon - a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires. Following in the footsteps of George Orwell, Anthony Burgess, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr., M. T. Anderson has created a not-so-brave new world — and a smart, savage satire that has captivated readers with its view of an imagined future that veers unnervingly close to the here and now.


 * Bradbury, Ray. //Fahrenheit 451//. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967. Print. **

The terrifyingly prophetic novel of a post-literate future. Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books. The classic dystopian novel of a post-literate future, Fahrenheit 451 stands alongside Orwell’s 1984 and Huxley’s Brave New World as a prophetic account of Western civilization’s enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity. Bradbury’s powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight into the potential of technology to create a novel which, decades from its first publication, still has the power to dazzle and shock.


 * Brown, Dan. //Inferno//. New York: Doubleday, 2013. Print. **

In the heart of Italy, Harvard professor of symbology, Robert Langdon, is drawn into a harrowing world centered on one of history’s most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces. . . Dante’s Inferno. Against this backdrop, Langdon battles a chilling adversary and grapples with an ingenious riddle that pulls him into a landscape of classic art, secret passageways, and futuristic science. Drawing from Dante’s dark epic poem, Langdon races to find answers and decide whom to trust. . . before the world is irrevocably altered.


 * Collins, Suzanne. //The Hunger Games//. New York: Scholastic, 2008. Print. ** The Hunger Games is the first book in a young adult dystopian/post-apocalyptic trilogy about a 16-year-old girl, Katniss Everdeen, who lives in one of twelve futuristic "districts" of North America which are run by a powerful and controlling government of a highly advance metropolis called the "Capital." In repayment for a past rebellion, two 12 - 18 year old “tributes” from each district must fight each year in a live televised competition until only one remains. Other related books by this author: //Catching Fire// (Book 2 in the trilogy), //Mockingjay// (Book 3 in the trilogy).

The novel won many awards, including the California Young Reader Medal, and was named one of Publishers Weekly's "Best Books of the Year" in 2008.


 * Datlow, Ellen, and Terri Windling. //After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia//. New York: Hyperion, 2012. Print. ** If the melt-down, flood, plague, the third World War, new Ice Age, Rapture, alien invasion, clamp-down, meteor, or something else entirely hit today, what would tomorrow look like? Some of the biggest names in young adult and adult literature answer that very question in this short story anthology, each story exploring the lives of teen protagonists raised in catastrophe's wake-whether set in the days after the change, or decades far in the future. New York Times bestselling authors Gregory Maguire, Garth Nix, Susan Beth Pfeffer, Carrie Ryan, Beth Revis, and Jane Yolen are among the many popular and award-winning storytellers lending their talents to this original and spellbinding anthology.


 * Huxley, Aldous. //Brave New World//. New York: Harper & Bros., 1932. Print. **

Far in the future, the World Controllers have created the ideal society. Through clever use of genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs, all its members are happy consumers. Bernard Marx seems alone harboring an ill-defined longing to break free. A visit to one of the few remaining Savage Reservations, where the old, imperfect life still continues, may be the cure for his distress.


 * Lowry, Lois. //The Giver//. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993. Print. ** This novel is set in a society, which begins as a utopian society but gradually becomes more and more dystopian. The novel follows a boy named Jonas through his twelfth year of life. In a seemingly perfect community, without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, a young boy is chosen to learn from an elderly man about the true pain and pleasure of the "real" world. The Giver won the 1994 Newbery Medal. Other related books in this genre by this author:// Gathering Blue //, //Messenge//r, and //Son//.


 * McCarthy, Cormac. //The Road//. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Print. ** The Road is a post-apocalyptic novel about a father and his young son's journey over several months, across a world struck by an unknown apocalypse that has destroyed most of civilization and, in the years afterwards, almost all life on Earth. The novel was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 2006, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2007. This book connects with our unit because it demonstrates how people struggle to survive once their resources have been depleted. The book was made into a film with the same name in 2009, directed by John Hillcoat, starring Viggo Mortensen (Lord of the Rings/Hidalgo) and Kodi Smit-McPhee.


 * Roth, Veronica. //Divergent//. New York: Katherine Tegen, 2012. Print. ** 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.ALA Teens' Top Ten Nominee (2012), Children's Choice Book Award Nominee for Tenn Choice Book of the Year (2012), Abraham Lincoln Award Nominee (2014), DABWAHA Romance Tournament for Best Young Adult Romance (2012), Goodreads Choice for Favorite Book of 2011 ad for Best Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction (2011). Other books in this trilogy: //Insurgent// (Book 2), //Allegiant// (Book 3)


 * Tevis, Walter S. //Mockingbird//. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980. Print. ** Mockingbird is a powerful novel of a future world where humans are dying. Those that survive spend their days in a narcotic bliss or choose a quick suicide rather than slow extinction. Humanity's salvation rests with an android who has no desire to live, and a man and a woman who must discover love, hope, and dreams of a world reborn.


 * Vonnegut, Kurt. //Cat's Cradle//. New York, NY: Delta Trade Paperbacks, 1998. Print. ** Cat’s Cradle is a satirical commentary on modern man and his madness. An apocalyptic tale of this planet’s ultimate fate, it features a midget as the protagonist, a complete, original theology created by a calypso singer, and a vision of the future that is at once blackly fatalistic and hilariously funny. Told with deadpan humor and bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut's cult tale of global destruction preys on our deepest fears of witnessing Armageddon and, worse still, surviving it. Another book by this author: //Welcome to the Money House -// a collection of futuristic and war stories.


 * Westerfeld, Scott. //Uglies//. New York: Simon Pulse, 2005. Print. ** The young adult book series, the Uglies, takes place in a world where all teens are given plastic surgery at the age of 16 to become Pretty. The hero of the book, Tally Youngblood, decides to rebel against the establishment and remain Ugly. Currently, the book series includes the books Uglies, Pretties, Specials, and Extras.

References: Amazon, Goodreads, Randomhouse