I kissed a zombie and I liked it (jk)

Some of the best and worst of supernatural/dystopic YA

So I have a ton of ebooks I haven't got around to reading. One of them is Adam Selzer's I Kissed a Zombie, and I Liked It. Apparently it's supposed to be satire, but because my face looked like D: the whole time, idk if it worked. It's about an 18-year-old chick called Alley (like seedy back alley) who falls in love with a pale, mysterious dude called Doug. Anyway, turns out he's a zombie, who was brought back to life to work in the Megamart store chain, and now keeps himself...er...alive by drinking embalming fluid every four hours. Om nom nom nom

Anyway...er...moving on. I wanted to make a sort of general post on YA at the moment, especially the paranormal and dystopic genres which are hardcore full right now.



There's the good. Ally Condie's Matched is absolutely amazing. Basically, you've got the Society - it seems like a utopia of sorts. Want a life partner? There's an app for that. The concept of a Match is to join male and females in a sort of algorithm destined for failproof marriage and babies. You can also be Single, which I assume is the option if you're gay, because Singles aren't permitted children or marriage. However, the Society is not perfect, and this becomes abundantly clear to the protagonist, Cassia, when weird stuff goes down with her Match.

And, of course, there's Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games, now a completed trilogy and an upcoming film. Please don't let the Stephenie Meyer recommendation put you off; it's badass. It's set in a dystopic world; The Hunger Games is a yearly event - two randomly drawn teenage 'tributes'  from each of the twelve districts sent into a bigass arena to fight to the death. Last one standing wins.

Moar: Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy. Libba Bray's Gemma Doyle trilogy (A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, and The Sweet Far Thing) is easily one of my favourite for YA. It's set in the Victorian era, about a girl who starts having strange visions. Also Kelly Creagh's Nevermore is amazing. Full of Poe references.

And now onto the fun stuff: the fails.

I hate to mention it, but I have to. Sup Twilight? Way to send feminism back 50 years.

Along similar lines, Becca Fitzpatrick's Hush, Hush. Fallen angels you say? This article on LiveJournal sums it up better than I could; rest assured, despite meaning to be "the ultimate bad boy novel", it's kind of really alarming and makes me D: face. And there's so many more fails to mention, but this is getting long, so let me just say: Carrie Ryan's The Forest of Hands and Teeth. The concept, of a little village plonked in the middle of a forest of crazy ass zombies? Pretty cash. The execution? Awful. The characters, while not creepy like Twilight's, are just as bland. So bland that I couldn't get more than halfway through this despite my many attempts.

Yep.