Divergent Enough?

Divergent
by Veronica Roth

Jan & Diane's pick

Summary:

Beatrice is a 16-year-old in a post-apocalyptic society formed in what used to be Chicago. To keep the peace, the society is divided into 5 factions based on personality traits: Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Erudite, and Dauntless. Beatrice and her brother come from Abnegation and must choose, along with all the other adolescents, which faction they will join for the rest of their lives. There is an aptitude test which indicates the suitable choice. Beatrice's results, however, are inconclusive--she is Divergent, a group targeted as traitors to the system.

Unsatisfied with Abnegation, Beatrice joins the Dauntless faction, changing her name to Tris, and participating in a dangerous and rigorous initiation. There she meets Four--an instructor with whom she strikes up a romance. Tris and Four uncover an Erudite plan to control the Dauntless with a hallucinatory serum and use them to overthrow (via massacre) the ruling Abnegation faction. The serum fails to control the two of them because they are Divergent. Together, they manage to stop the program and escape with other survivors of Abnegation.

Blame the Fault in our Stars

The Fault in our Stars
by John Green

Diane's Pick

Summary:

The story is told by Hazel Grace Lancaster, a sixteen-year-old with terminal thyroid cancer that has spread to her lungs. At her parent-imposed support group, located in the "literal heart of Jesus" in a church, Hazel meets Augustus Waters, an attractive, one-legged seventeen-year-old survivor of osteosarcoma. Together, they decide to take a light-hearted, deep-minded approach to romance and a comedic approach to tragedy.

*SPOILER ALERT*: Stop reading this if you don't want to know the ending.

The Doctor is In... the Closet

Nightwood
by Djuna Barnes


Jan's Pick

Summary:

Is there even a way to summarize this book? If you're looking for praise, read the glowing introduction by T.S. Eliot who "greatly admire[s]" it. The book has been lauded as a lesbian, feminist classic, and no doubt Eliot's preface has been instrumental in raising its esteem.

The story, which is really more of a weaving of dramatic monologue and poetic character description, revolves around the strained and unrequited romances of Robin Vote--introduced as a sleepwalker on page 40. She first marries Felix--a wealthy 'Baron' of Jewish descent--with whom she has a son. Both of whom she promptly abandons.

The Omen..er...Good Omens

Good Omens
by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett

Ann's Pick

Summary:

Good Omens is a comedic take on the end of the world. The story is driven primarily by the missions
and shenanigans of two supernatural beings--the fallen angel Crowley (the serpent in Eden) and the angel Aziraphale (Eden's cherub with the flaming sword)--who, when they discover they both like living on Earth more than either Heaven or Hell, aid each other in halting the apocalypse.

The cast of characters is quite long, but at the forefront is Adam--the child Antichrist who is 11 when the apocalypse begins. In a hilarious mix-up at the hospital, the Satanist nuns accidentally lose track of him in switching out the babies, so Adam is left to grow up in a normal English family in the town of Tadwell.

Destined or Doomed? Readers by Design

Our parents may have lead us to water, but they definitely didn't make us drink.

Ann:

My mom tells me that we read together all the time when I was little. And I do have a visceral nostalgia for the shoestring spaghetti of Gregory the Terrible Eater, the pendulous night fruit discovered by Stellaluna, the nine-pie picnic courtesy of Harold and his crayon (sensing a pattern yet?). I don't, however, have any memories of snuggling next to her, feeling the characters and pages with grubby little fingers, or sounding out simple words like CAT DOG BOOK. I just remember the stories. It wasn't until much later that any real connection was made between those stories and the act of reading itself.

The Fable of Fan

 

On Such a Full Sea
by Chang-Rae Lee



Diane's Pick

Summary:

The story is set in an undefined, dystopian future where society is confined and stratified into 3 major categories: the open counties, the production facilities, and the charter cities. Echoes of today's fears can be seen in the aftermath of avian and swine flu pandemics, mass immigration, pollution, rationed medical care, and unrestrained capitalism.

The story follows a teenage protagonist, Fan, and the search for her abducted boyfriend Reg. She leaves the safety of B-Mor (formerly Baltimore, populated by an ethnic Chinese society which runs a "growing" facility for fish and plants) to traverse the dangerous unknown beyond the walls. After her exodus, the B-Mor community is left to mourn and wonder after her, to fill in the rest of her fable.