That Just Happened!

If you recall I was very fortunate to be the winner of a Dystopian prize pack from Presenting Lenore.  I must admit I am quite the fan of dystopian fiction.  I love that these alternate realities are ones that so closely reflect our own, thereby encouraging us to look at our modern society and see its flaws.  The point is not to make the Reader depressed, (although sometimes that happens) but to serve as a warning.  We should be able to ask questions and not be afraid to speak out.  I remember reading Margaret Atwood’s  A Handmaid’s Tale   in high school and being so impacted by it, but I didn’t know that it belonged to this genre.  We, as citizens in a free world with rights and freedoms, owe it to ourselves and future generations to speak up when we see injustice, vote for officials whose causes we believe in and demand to have a say in what happens to us.  (All this coming from the girl who refuses to watch drama in film because if I wanted to be sad I’d watch the news).

Hall, Teri. The Line.  Dial Books (an imprint of Penguin Books) (2010).

Rachel lives with her mother on The Property. The good thing about living there is that it’s far from the city where the oppressive government is most active.  The bad thing, at least to most people, is that it’s close to the Line—an uncrossable section of the National Border Defense System, an invisible barrier that encloses the entire country.

She can see the Line from the greenhouse windows, but she is forbidden to go near it.  Across the Line is Away, and though Rachel has heard many whispers about the dangers there, she’s never really believed the stories. Until the day she hears a recording that could only have come from across the Line.

It’s a voice asking for help.

Who sent the message? What is her mother hiding?  And to what lengths will Rachel go in order to do what she thinks is right?

Author’s Website

This was a very interesting book and I must admit, when I finished it I hopped on the web to see if there was a sequel out.  I forgot that the books were all new releases and unless the author had 2 books written and published at once, I was out of luck.  I found the character of Rachel very believable.  She was inquisitive and a little sassy, which just goes to show that although the society has changed, there are characteristics that are distinctly human.  Rachel’s mother works for the woman who owns the greenhouse and I felt that the boss’ character was really well written.  It is difficult to tell if she is a “bad guy” and everyone seems to be hiding something.  I also appreciated that the ending wasn’t all neat and tidy (possibly because there will  be a sequel) because it further enforced the realness of the characters.

All in all this was a pretty good book and they are developing some teaching materials to accompany it which will be available on her website: www.terihall.com

I think that a lot of teens will be able to relate to the characters and see a lot of our society today in the novel, which will help them to draw parallels and provoke some discussion.  I would Put it On Your TBR List.

Yay!  I won!  Thanks to Lenore at Presenting Lenore I will be the proud recipient of her Dystopian February Prize Pack.  All I had to do was fill out a little survey about dystopian fiction and boom!  I will be receiving ”Restoring Harmony”, “The Line”, “Incarceron” and “The Other Side of the Island”, compliments of Penguin books. 

Dystopian fiction is a genre that deals with an imperfect future world, where people are repressed due to war, hunger, plague, genetic mutations, etc.  Most commonly found in science fiction works like “Oryx and Crake” by Margaret Atwood and “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy would be great examples (and are both excellent books, I highly recommend them.)  Often, both utopic and dystopic societies exist in these books and it is a struggle to achieve balance between them.  This genre is used to hold a magnifying glass up to issues currently facing us and explores the potential outcomes of our actions today.  You can visit the Wikipedia page  to learn more about this genre.  Once again, thank you to Lenore, I look forward to reading more literature in this genre.

Baker, Tiffany.  The Little Giant of Aberdeen County.  Hachette Book Group. (2009).

When Truly Plaice’s mother was pregnant, the town of Aberdeen joined together in betting how recordbreakingly huge the baby boy would ultimately be. The girl who proved to be Truly paid the price of her enormity; her father blamed her for her mother’s death in childbirth, and was totally ill equipped to raise either this giant child or her polar opposite sister Serena Jane, the epitome of femine perfection. When he, too, relinquished his increasingly tenuous grip on life, Truly and Serena Jane are separated–Serena Jane to live a life of privilege as the future May Queen and Truly to live on the outskirts of town on the farm of the town sadsack, the subject of constant abuse and humiliation at the hands of her peers.

When Serena Jane flees town and a loveless marriage to Bob Bob, it is Truly who must become the woman of a house that she did not choose and mother to her eight-year-old nephew Bobbie. Truly’s brother-in-law is relentless and brutal; he criticizes her physique and the limitations of her health as a result, and degrades her more than any one human could bear. It is only when Truly finds her calling–the ability to heal illness with herbs and naturopathic techniques–hidden within the folds of Robert Morgan’s family quilt, that she begins to regain control over her life and herself. Unearthed family secrets, however, will lead to the kind of betrayal that eventually break the Morgan family apart forever, but Truly’s reckoning with her own demons allows for both an uprooting of Aberdeen County, and the possibility of love in unexpected places.

Publishers Web Site

As you may remember, I won this book in a giveaway hosted by Darlene @ Peeking Between the Pages (Thanks, Darlene!).  I was so excited to receive it in the mail (because I love  getting mail!) and I emailed Darlene right away to tell her I had the book in my hot little hands and it was next on my TBR list.  Well, that was true, but it has just taken me a while to post my review, so here we go.

I really, thoroughly, truly enjoyed this book.  I thought it was so well written and it definitely pulled at my heartstrings (the two that are left, that is).  Truly is so misunderstood due to her size, but she has a wealth of feelings that lay just under the surface.  We see them start to break through when she starts dabbling with “witchcraft” and it starts to affect the people in her town.  The Reader really sees Truly walk on a path of self-discovery, but the path has some surprising twists and turns.  I like how Truly is not perfect.  She has flaws and makes mistakes, but she loves dearly, which makes her so relateable.  Although she was ostracized from society, this is not a story about an underdog.  For the most part Truly is very accepting of the way things are and does not try to change until she moves in with Bob Bob.  There is no spectacular, magical ending where all her troubles go away and she just loses the weight and is as pretty as her sister.  Truly is how she is and that won’t change, but the way she feels about it does.

Themes in this book were family, love, and self-discovery. 

I would say this is a Must Read.