These Books Among Us

I have talked a lot on this blog about the connections between society and the fictitious narratives we as humans create out of our circumstances. Most people think of the historical moments going into their television shows. Say during President Obama's presidency, many people saw African American presidents portrayed in their favorite television shows and movies. This is just one way the present can alter our fictions. But some are more frightening than that. I am talking about the Rise of the Dystopian novel. The first dystopian novel written was The Time Machine by HG Wells and it was ahead of its time. Where many of the more popular dystopian novels are about the fears of society, the Time Machine is the fear of the other and of technology. When you read The Time Machine, you will see people who are not the stereotypical 1895 England person. They are "savage" but they are also the future. Is this a fear of technology taking the world back to it's primitive na...

It seems that nowadays, there is a lack of the “Happily Ever After” ending in many narratives throughout media. From television, to film, to literature, there is no shortage of the dystopian narrative, but going further than that, there seems to be a general lack of the happily ever after trope in the current media. But why is that? Is the generation of creators so scarred from the societal pressures and issues that have arisen in the past thirty years? Have the wars, terrorism, and economic downfalls hit the new creators so hard? Is the future so bleak one cannot imagine there being a way for it to end happily? Is there a way to get these happily ever afters back? And if so, do we really want them? Throughout this post, I am going to be exploring these very questions, to varying degrees, and hopefully adding to ideas you may already foster. Okay, so let’s start with the actual trope. Everyone knows the classic Disney-like ending that a lot of the chick-flick type of me...

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi (338 pages) Date Read: 7 September 2016 My Rating: 5 Stars Synopsis: I have a curse I have a gift I am a monster I'm more than human My touch is lethal My touch is power I am their weapon I will fight back Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days. The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color. The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war – and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe s...