Tag: dystopian

Broken Skies

A screenshot of Broken Skies by Theresa Kay on a smoky forest background. On the cover: A young woman stands, her back to the viewer, surrounded by golden light. She appears to be looking down into a valley with a forest, and perhaps a city in the distance.

Theresa Kay’s Broken Skies is a young adult science fiction novel about Jax, a traumatized young woman, living in a post-apocalyptic world. Disease has decimated the human population, and aliens are colonizing Earth.

Then some of those aliens kidnap Jax’s brother, leaving one of their own behind, wounded. Jax makes a deal with the wounded alien. She’ll help him get back to his city if he gets her in, so she can rescue her brother.

What follows is a journey that’s as much about self-discovery as about surviving in a world become savage. There’s also a fair amount of romance.

I like Jax in this piece, and I think there’s lots of great conflict–both internal and external. The world-building is decent. Even better, the plot comes to a relatively satisfying conclusion for the first part of a series. I will probably eventually want to read more.

I’d recommend Broken Skies for people who like science fiction, especially dystopian. Interested in other science fiction recommendations? Check out my take on Beyond, The Left Hand of Darkness , or Cinder.

The Mind Readers

I enjoyed this dip into the life of a young woman who can tell what everyone around her is thinking.  I did find myself wondering why her grandma didn’t prepare her better for the world she was getting into, and why she was so quick to trust a pretty face–though that was explained (but not entirely to my satisfaction) later.

Still, it’s a fun, almost light–if any dystopian novel could be called light–read.  I may try to pick up the sequel if I get past my frustration with an ending that’s a blatant ad for the next book.

Dust

Dust is the third book in Hugh Howie’s Silo series, and while it continues to have the detailed world-building, interesting characters (Juliet and Donald are both fascinating), and suspenseful, fast-paced plot of the first two, I found myself less invested in this one.  I spent much of the book with the nagging feeling that something was missing–important bits of the complicated groundwork laid in the first two books dropped away, leaving a much less complicated dystopia, with loose threads (characters, bits of the conspiracy) left hanging to unravel or chafe, so that the (admittedly satisfying) ending felt too easy.  Perhaps another book in this world will come and pick up the dropped threads–or perhaps I’m too picky.

Nonetheless, this was fun, and I’d probably pick up another Hugh Howie book, even in this series, if the occasion arose.