Fiction Friday #8 - Utopian/Dystopian Reads

This Side of Paradise by Steven Layne was a school pick that I read with one of my students. Jack Barrett is just an average high school student with a goofy younger brother until his perfectionist father decides to move the family to Paradise to work for the mysterious Mr. Adam Eden at Eden Corporation. Now part of me wonders why on earth the author had to go with such obvious names like Eden, Paradise, and Adam for the major places and characters, but on the other hand, Layne was trying to make a point and the names help him do that. The entire story, a sci-fi thriller, questions if the price of perfection is worth the end result. Like many utopian books, Layne uses this story to point out that imperfections are what make people unique and allow us to truly live life. Layne did throw in some intriguing plot twists that surprised me, but they came a little too early and by the end of the book there wasn't enough drama to captivate my imagination. Although I think my biggest issue with this book was it's extremely lame cover! I think this bugged me so much because the design makes me think it's from the 90s (therefore a bit outdated as a sci-fi) when this book was actually published in 2005.Next up: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins! Mockingjay the final book in Collins' Hunger Games trilogy. I read book two, Catching Fire, last week with one of my students, and it ends at such an intense moment in the story that I had to read through Mockingjay as soon as I finished Catching Fire. The first two books in the trilogy were extremely well written, so I assumed Mockingjay would be the same. I was extremely disappointed in the concluding book. It starts out strong  the characters are growing and changing and the plot is intriguing. Then, at about the halfway point, it feels like Collins simply stopped caring about the story and just started throwing something on the page to finish it quickly. The Hunger Games trilogy is all about he futuristic, dystopian nation of Panam. After surviving the Hunger Games in the first book and becoming the symbol of rebellion against the oppressive Capitol in the second book, the main character Katniss Everdeen is fighting to bring down the Capitol while trying to figure out who she can trust since everyone she knows seems to be keeping secrets from her. Basically, the seventeen year old girl has once again found herself fighting for survival. My biggest issue with the ending of this book is that her life still seems hopeless and miserable. You spend so much time enduring the awful circumstances of Katniss' life that all you want is some sort of reprieve from the sadness. Unfortunately, you don't get a reprieve. You get a reminder that she will most likely be miserable for the rest of her life. Quite the bummer really. I still think the series as a whole is worth reading, but I just wish it ended on a more hopeful note.Catching Fire, Mockingjay, and This Side of Paradise. The last three books I had read were horribly depressing, dystopian/utopian novels. None of them had a truly happy ending. So I decided to find a book to read that would be more positive and enjoyable.I ended up reading Tim Tebow's autobiography Through My Eyes, which is basically Tebow telling the story of his life and career from his perspective. It was like he figured if everyone was going to be talking about his life, then he wanted to get his thoughts about his life out there too. Tebow and his co-author, Nathan Whitaker, did a great job writing this book. He starts out talking about his birth story and childhood and early love for sports. Tebow takes readers through the different events that led to him being drafted by the Broncos. About half way into the book, I did get a little bored with all the football talk. (I know, that's what I get for reading a book about a football player!) However, he did do a great job of explaining plays and terms when he was talking about his different games. He basically walks you through each game he played in during his college career and depending on how significant the game was to him some of them are covered in a couple pages and some just a sentence or two. Although I got a little bored with some of the football explanations, Tebow also tried to cover some of the other things happening in his life  socially, emotionally and spiritually. I was pretty impressed with his ability to relate his faith to just about anything he was telling stories about. He also has some seriously funny stories, but what else would you expect from a missionary kid who grew up on a farm with two older brothers and two older sisters?! I would definitely recommend reading this book; even if you aren't a big football fan, it is an enjoyable and encouraging book! I only wish it wasn't three years old...it would be nice to get his perspective on what all has been going on in his world since 2011.I have pretty much always had a rule that if I start a book, I have to finish it. Even if I get a little ways into it and think it's lame, I try really hard to push myself to finish the book anyway because you never know when a book might surprise you with it's ending. I made Kelley keep reading a book she didn't really like a couple weeks ago and she ended up truly enjoying it by the end.However, I must admit that I quit reading two books this week. One was a book I was reading with a student. I got a few chapters into it and didn't like the characters, writing style or plot, so I went ahead and let her finish it on her own. The second I gave up on was the first book in the Percy Jackson series, which I actually thoroughly enjoyed and I intend to finish it someday. Like I said earlier, I'm pretty done with depressing stories all about kids going to battle right now. I could see that this was the direction the book was headed and bowed out before I got too frustrated with the story. Plus, my spring break starts tomorrow and I really didn't want to read kids books over my break!I think I'm going to find something happy and uplifting to read, maybe even a few, before I get back to reading the Percy Jackson books. So now I'm off to find a happy book!