Book Challenge -- Day 6

6. Favorite dystopian books

I didn't read a lot of dystopian fiction until recently. Most of it has a lot of zombies, and I really don't need to be imagining them more than I already am with shows like the Walking Dead around.
     I picked up The Hunger Games when the first movie came out and enjoyed the story of a girl who didn't want to become morally bankrupt so she broke the rules. For me, Katniss's rebellion was always about protecting her family from extinction and herself from becoming the killer the Capitol wanted her to be. The second book just showed how broken resistance made her, then the final story gave her a purpose to fight for again, and though Katniss didn't always do as she was told, I think I'd respect her as a person if I ever met her.
     Divergent, however, was completely my choice to pick up. At first the cover caught my eye (hey, everyone falls prey to a pretty cover now and then) and the story seemed a lot like Harry Potter meets Hunger Games. Tris chooses who she wants to align herself with then discovers one faction wants to take over the government sparking war. I liked that Tris wasn't completely sure of herself or completely paralyzed by her own insecurities as so many heroines are portrayed. She lives in this post-apocalypse and hasn't ever known a world outside it, but she's willing to fight for something she's never imagined. I liked that.
     The Challenge wants two more books, but I haven't read a lot of dystopian fiction--something like Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe might qualify. When I first read Robinson Crusoe I didn't understand why it was such a big deal that a man survived on a deserted island without civilization. Then I re-read it and realized most of the amazing-ness was that Crusoe survived twenty-eight years on an island, the first several by himself and the last few with only one man as companion. And he made it back to civilization able to be part of society. He retained his sanity in an environment man was not thought to survive mentally, by contemporary expectation he would have gone insane. I enjoyed reading the story and how Crusoe survived and even kept time.
     One that I would not consider Dystopian, but is classified as such is Cinder. Though there is an element of post-apocalypse the world is not collapsing (at least not in Cinder) only being disrupted by plague. I enjoyed the story and am looking forward to more of Marissa Meyer's books. Cinder is a cyborg and an important one that few people know of. In her first book she just wants to be normal and fit in, but it is impossible for a half-machine person to be a person. Cinder isn't just a Cinderella story and that's why I enjoyed it so much.