All tagged Julia Karr

{Book Matchmaker} Tracey Seeks Romance, Dystopia & Urban Fantasy Featuring Strong Female Characters

Sarah Moon
Book Matchmaker

Tracey, our latest Book Matchmaker victim lucky participant, filled out our extremely sophisticated Book Matchmaker questionnaire in search of recommendations for some fresh reads with romance, but also with strong female characters.

You’d think this would be an easy one—but snooping on her Goodreads profile, Tracey had already read a lot of our go-to recommendations. But we came up with some good ones—or at least we hope so. 

Tracey’s Responses

YA or Adult: Surprise Me
Genres: Romance, Urban Fantasy
Multiple POV
Swoon Factor: 4
Gross Out Factor: 3
Smut Factor: 4
Fluff Factor: 4
Likes: “On the Island, loved the character development. And multi-POV. Hunger Games, Graceling, Wicked Lovely, Enders Game, Feed, Divergent! Strong women, romance—but great characters and strong writing are a must”
Dislikes: No quest books, no sagas that need maps and a glossary to keep track of everyone! Bad writing and bad character development. 

The Results

Thumped by Megan McCafferty

Bumped & Thumped by Megan McCafferty (YA)

I know. It’s shocking to think that the government would try to stick its nose in our ladyparts.

This satire by the author of the fabulous Jessica Darling series is recommended by Laura as a great read for someone looking for a something fresh in the cluttered dystopian shelves. 

{Book Matchmaker} Erica Hearts Dystopia

Sarah Moon
Book Matchmaker

Meet Erica, our latest Book Matchmaker victim participant. Her favorite books are dystopians, but she also loves to read contemporary fiction, science fiction and fantasy. Erica took our Extremely Scientific Survey recently and these are her results.

YA or Adult: Surprise Me

Genres: Contemporary, Historical, Dystopia, Fantasy, Science Fiction

POV & Narrative Style: First Person, Third Person, Multiple POV

Swoon Factor: 3

Gross Out Factor: 5

Smut Factor:  4

Fluff Factor: 3

Favorite Books: Hunger Games, The Road, Oryx and Crake, The Giver

Hated Tropes: None, really 

The Results! 

[Note: We’re slimming down our recommendations to 3-5 from this point forward—come back for more once you’ve read these!]

On the Beach by Nevil Shute

On the Beach by Nevil Shute (Adult)

{Review} Truth by Julia Karr

{Review} Truth by Julia Karr

Sarah Moon
Books

On the day before I started reading Truth, the sequel to the excellent 2011 release XVI, I tweeted the following:

I kind of feel like I just need to quit dystopians cold turkey. At this point, they’re just aggravating me. Hopefully ninjas or something will be the next big thing, because I need something new.

Actually, yes, ninjas would be excellent.

Then I picked up the sequel to my favorite 2011 dystopian release* and remembered that the subgenre isn’t quite on life-support yet. 

Truth picks up shortly after XVI left off—if you have not read XVI or need a refresher, here’s a quick rundown of the premise and what I appreciated about it (my Goodreads review is here): 

  • Nina Oberon lives in a future version of the United States ruled by a misogynist Governing Council with the aid of a corrupt version of the media;
  • One of the main keys to the government’s control over the population is their control over the sexual availability of girls once they are 16—each girl gets a tattoo of “XVI” on their wrist and is therefore deemed available to any man who wants them, it is a culture that encourages rape and sexual control, and it is extremely disturbing;
  • The role the media plays in pushing teen and tween girls to act and behave in a way that encourages this culture is even more disturbing because it is not all that different from modern Western society;
  • Nina’s family has a history of involvement in the resistance movement and she becomes increasingly involved in it herself as she approaches her sixteenth birthday. (This is one of the things I most appreciated about XVI—there was context for her fighting the powers that be. In so many YA dystopians, the lead is just  a special snowflake and we’re just supposed to accept that’s why she’s fighing the bad guys.); 
  • Karr’s writing is tight and makes the Nina’s hyper-commercial, disturbing world come to life; and
  • I read XVI as a standalone, not knowing it was a planned trilogy and it actually worked as a single book!

If you have not read XVI, and don’t want to be spoiled for that book, I strongly recommend you do not continue reading my review of Truth! Do not pass Go!, instead, read XVI, and come back and read my review of Truth.