182. DIVERGENT

Veronica Roth 2011

First in yet another dystopian young adult Trilogy, this novel managed to catch my attention with its familiar Chicago setting, promising premise, intense action-packed scenes, seeming absence of the predictable love triangle (at least in this first book) and its fearless heroine, Beatrice. Raised by Abnegation parents, she has reached the appointed day to take the Aptitude test that will clearly show the faction she should belong to forever: Abnegation (the selfless), Candor (the honest), Erudite (the intelligent), Amity (the peaceful) or Dauntless ( the brave). But the results of her test shows she is none of those. She is Divergent, a fact she needs to keep a secret. So she chooses the Dauntless faction and goes through its grueling initiation. Will being Divergent help her or destroy her?

'There is one mirror in my house. It is behind a sliding panel in the hallway upstairs. Our faction allows me to stand in front of it on the second day of every third month, the day my mother cuts my hair.'(opening lines)

'"Yes and no. My conclusion," she explains, "is that you display equal aptitude for Abnegation, Dauntless, and Erudite. People who get this kind of result are..." She looks over her shoulder like she expects someone to appear behind her. "... are called... Divergent." She says the last word so quietly that I almost don't hear it, and her tense, worried look returns.'(22)

'The reason for the simplicity isn't disdain for uniqueness, as the other factions have sometimes interpreted it. Everything -- our houses, our clothes, our hairstyles -- is meant to help us forget ourselves and to protect us from vanity, greed, and envy, which are just forms of selfishness. If we have little, and want for little, and we are all equal, we envy no one.'(27-28)

'In the last circle are five metal bowls so large they could hold my entire body, if I curled up. Each one contains a substance that represents each faction: gray stones for Abnegation, water for Erudite, earth for Amity, lit coals for Dauntless, and glass for Candor.
When Marcus calls my name, I will walk to the center of the three circles. I will not speak. He will offer me a knife. I will cut my hand and sprinkle my blood into the bowl of the faction I choose.
My blood on the stones. My blood sizzling on the coals.'(40)

'Decades ago our ancestors realized that it is not political ideology, religious belief, race, or nationalism that is to blame for a warring world. Rather, they determined that it was the fault of human personality -- of humankind's inclination toward evil, in whatever form that is. They divided into factions that sought to eradicate those qualities they believed responsible for the world's disarray.'(42)

'Those who blamed aggression formed Amity. ... Those who blamed ignorance became the Erudite. ... Those who blamed duplicity created Candor. ... Those who blamed selfishness made Abnegation. ... And those who blamed cowardice were the Dauntless.'(42-43)

'My father says that those who want power and get it live in terror of losing it. That's why we have to give power to those who do not want it.'(68)

'Would I even be strong enough to hold on to her? Would it be worth my effort to try to help her if I know I'm too weak to do any good?
I know that those questions are: excuses. Human reason can excuse any evil; that is why it's important that we don't rely on it.'(102)

'I believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another.'(207)

'I sob again, and force myself forward, stretching out on the grass, which prickles against my skin. I extend my arms and breathe. Crows push and prod at my sides, worming their way beneath me, and I let them. I let the flapping of wings and the squawking and the pecking and the prodding continue, relaxing one muscle at a time, resigning myself to becoming a pecked carcass.'(235)

'But becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it, that's the point.'(239)

'The rhythm of his breaths slows, and I prop myself up to see if he is asleep. He lies on his stomach with one arm around his head. His eyes are closed, his lips parted. For the first time, he looks as young as he is, and I wonder who he really is. Who is he when he isn't Dauntless, isn't an instructor, isn't Four, isn't anything in particular?'(288)

'I am not Abnegation. I am not Dauntless.
I am Divergent.
And I can't be controlled.'(442)

a Katherine Tegen Book Edition
487 pages
Book borrowed from the Library
Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge

149. ANIMAL FARM

George Orwell 1956

Not to be cynical, but why can't I stop feeling that this book that was written in 1956, is somehow portraying what is now the state of politicking and governing in our world today?  This highly provocative satire about animals rebelling against, and ultimately overthrowing humans, clearly spotlights what greed and power can do to anyone. Highly unsettling.

'Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the popholes.(opening lines)

'Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours? Let us face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short. We are born, we are given just so much food as will keep the breath in our bodies, and those of us who are capable of it are forced to work in the last atom of our strength; and the very instant that our usefulness has come to an end we are slaughtered with hideous cruelty. No animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: this is the plain truth.'(28)

'Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.'(29)

"I have little more to say. I merely repeat, remember always your duty of enmity towards Man and all his ways. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend. And remember also that in fighting against Man, we must not come to resemble him. Even when you have conquered him, do not adopt his vices. No animal must ever live in a house, or sleep in a bed, or wear clothes, or drink alcohol, or smoke tobacco, or touch money, or engage in trade. All  the habits of Man are evil. And, above all, no animal must ever tyrannise over his own kind. Weak or strong, clever or simple, we are all brothers. No animal must ever kill any other animal. All animals are equal.'(31-32)

'Boxer was the admiration of everybody. He had been a hard worker even in Jones's time, but now he seemed more like three horses than one; there were days when the entire work of the farm seemed to rest on his mighty shoulders.'(46)

'The animals listened first to Napoleon, then to Snowball, and could not make up their minds which was right; indeed, they always found themselves in agreement with the one who was speaking at the moment.'(66)

'Once again this argument was unanswerable. Certainly the animals did not want Jones back; if the holding of the debates on Sunday mornings was liable to bring him back, then the debates must stop. Boxer, who had now had time to think things over, voiced the general feeling by saying: "If Comrade Napoleon says it., it must be right." and from then on he adopted the maxim, "Napoleon is always right," in addition to his private motto of "I will work harder."'(70)

'The windmill was, in fact, Napoleon's own creation. Why, then, asked somebody, had he spoken so strongly against it? Here Squealer looked very sly. That, he said, was Comrade Napoleon's cunning. He had seemed to oppose the windmill, simply as a manoeuvre to get rid of Snowball, who was a dangerous character and a bad influence. Now that Snowball was out of the way, the plan could go forward without his interference. This, said Squealer, was something called tactics. He repeated a number of times. "Tactics, comrades, tactics!" skipping round and whisking his tail with a merry laugh. The animals were not certain what the word meant, but Squealer spoke so persuasively, and the three dogs who happened to be with him growled so threateningly, that they accepted his explanation without further questions.'(71-72)

'It was vitally necessary to conceal this fact from the outside world. Emboldened by the collapse of the windmill, the human beings were inventing fresh lies about the Animal Farm.... Napoleon was well aware of the bad results that might follow if the real facts of the food situation were known, and he decided to make use of Mr. Whymper to spread a contrary impression.'(85)

'It was a clear spring evening. The grass and the bursting hedges were gilded by the level rays of the sun. Never had the farm -- and with a kind of surprise they remembered that it was their own farm, every inch of it their own property -- appeared to the animals so desirable a place. As Clover looked down the hillside her eyes filled with tears. If she would have spoken her thoughts, it would have been to say that this was not what they had aimed at when they had set themselves years ago to work for the overthrow of the human race.'(95)

'Sometimes the older ones among them racked their dim memories and tried to determine whether in the early days of the Rebellion, when Jones's expulsion was still recent, things had been better or worse than now. They could not remember. There was nothing with which they could compare their present lives: they had nothing to go upon except Squealer's lists of figures, which invariably demonstrated that everything was better and better.'(129-130)

a Signet classic edition
139 pages
Book borrowed from JRMD
Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge

142. 1984

George Orwell 1949

A thought-provoking dystopian novel about an evil totalitarian regime where 'Big Brother' keeps tabs on every person's actions and thoughts. Among other things, there is perpetual war, thoughts are monitored constantly to make sure one 'doublethinks', truth and historical facts are revised and altered, the past flushed down the 'memory hole', language destroyed to the simpler 'Newspeak', and any person who tries to rebel is arrested and 'changed'. Which is why when Winston Smith, the protagonist tries to conjure ways of rebelling and continue to have one sliver of hope for change, the party tries to crush his soul. Such a disturbing and scary possibility!

'It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.'(opening lines)

'From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party:

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH'(7)

'They were the homes of the four Ministries between which the entire apparatus of government was divided. the Ministry of Truth, which concerned itself with news, entertainment education, and the fine arts; the Ministry of Peace, which concerned itself with war; the Ministry of Love, which maintained law and order; and the Ministry of Plenty, which was responsible for the economic affairs. Their names in Newspeak: Minitrue, Minipax, Miniluv and Miniplenty.'(8)

'He dipped the pen into the ink and then faltered for just a second. A tremor had gone through his bowels. To mark the paper was the decisive act. In small clumsy letters he wrote:

April 4th, 1984

He sat back. A sense of complete helplessness had descended upon him. To begin with, he did not know with any certainty that this was 1984. It must be round about that date, since he was fairly sure that his age was thirty nine, and he believed that he had been born in 1944 or 1945; but it was never possible nowadays to pin down any date within a year or two.'(10)

'The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretense was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing screaming lunatic.'(16)

'His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian on democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all -- that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you just had performed. Even to understand the word "doublethink" involved the use of doublethink.'(32-33)

'If there is hope (wrote Winston) it lies in the proles.'(60)

"My grandfather. He used to say it to me when I was a little girl. He was vaporized when I was eight -- at any rate, he disappeared. I wonder what a lemon was," she added inconsequently."I've seen oranges. They're a kind of round yellow fruit with a thick skin."
"I can remember lemons," said Winston. "They were quite common in the Fifties. They were so sour that it set your teeth on edge even to smell them."(121-122)

'Both of them knew -- in a way, it was never out of their minds -- that what was now happening could not last long. There were times when the fact of impending death seemed as palpable as the bed they lay on, and they would cling together with a sort of despairing sensuality, like a damned soul grasping at his last morsel of pleasure when the clock is within five minutes of striking.'(125)

'Do you realize that the past, starting from yesterday, has been actually abolished? If it survives anywhere, it's in a few solid objects with no words attached to them, like that lump of glass there. Already we know almost literally nothing about the Revolution and the years before the Revolution. Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.'(128)

'In a way, the world-view of the party imposed itself most successfully on people incapable of understanding it. They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality, because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice what was happening. By lack of understanding they remained sane. They simply swallowed everything, and what they swallowed did them no harm, because it left no residue behind, just as grain of corn will pass undigested through the body of a bird.'(129)

'If you can feel that staying human is worth while, even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them... Facts, at any rate, could not be kept hidden. They could be tracked down by inquiry, they could be squeezed out of you by torture. But if the object was not to stay alive but to stay human, what difference did it ultimately make? They could not alter your feelings; for that matter you could not alter them yourself, even if you wanted to. They could lay bare in the utmost detail everything that you had done or said or thought; but the inner heart, whose workings were mysterious even to yourself, remained impregnable.'(138)

'The best books he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already.'(165)

'The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison they never even become aware that they are oppressed.'(171)

'Sooner or later it would happen: strength would change into consciousness. The proles were immortal; you could not doubt it when you looked at that valiant figure in the yard. In the end their awakening would come. And until that happened, though it might be a thousand years, they would stay alive against all the odds, like birds, passing on from body to body the vitality which the Party did not share and could not kill.'(182)

'The Party is not interested in the overt act; the thought is all we care about. We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them.'(209)

a Signet Classic edition
245 pages
Book owned
Book qualifies for: 100+ Reading Challenge
___________________________

103. the HANDMAID'S TALE

Margaret Atwood 1986

In this ingenious futuristic novel of caution, the state of Maine is under Gileadian empire, a totalitarian regime where women are either handmaids, Commander's Wives, Aunts or Marthas and men are either Commanders, Angels, Guardians or Eyes. Offred, the narrator is a handmaid, one whose only function is to have babies of their Commander's for their wives. She has three chances to have a Keeper, or a normal baby. Otherwise, If she delivers an abnormal baby, a Shredder, she is salvaged or is considered Unwoman. This dystopian book full of scary possibilities certainly lives one with lots to think about and maybe pray for, for days.

'We slept in what had once been the gymnasium. The floor was of varnished wood, with stripes and circles painted on it, for the games that were formerly played there; the hoops for the basketball nets were still in place, though the nets were gone.'(opening lines)

'We learned to whisper almost without sound. In the semidarkness we could stretch our arms, when the Aunts weren't looking, and touch each other's hands across space. We learned to lipread, our heads flat on the beds, turned sideways, watching each other's mouths. In this way we exchanged names, from bed to bed: Alma. Janine. Dolores. Moira. June.'(4)

'Everything except the wings around my face is red: the color of blood, which defines us. The skirt is ankle-length, full gathered to a flat yoke that extends over the breasts, the sleeves are full. The white wings too are prescribed issue; they are to keep us from seeing, but also from being seen.'(8)

'Now we walk along the same street, in red pairs, and no man shouts obscenities at us, touches us. No one whistles. There is more than one kind of freedom, saint Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it.'(24)

'The night is mine, my own time, to do with as I will, as long as I am quiet. As long as I don't move. As long as I lie still. The difference between lie and lay. (37)

'To be a man, watched by women. It must be entirely strange. To have them watching him all the time. To have them wondering, What's he going to do next? To have them flinch when he moves, even if it's a harmless enough move, to reach for an ashtray perhaps. To have them sizing him up. To have him thinking, He can't do it, he won't do, he'll have to do, this last as if he were a garment, out of style or shoddy, which must nevertheless be put on because there's nothing else available.'(87)

'Not a hope. I know where I am, and who, and what day it is. These are the tests, and I am sane. Sanity is a valuable possession; I hoard it the way people once hoarded money. I save it, so I will have enough, when the time comes.'(109)

'You are a transitional generation, said Aunt Lydia. It is the hardest for you. We know the sacrifices you are being expected to make. It is hard when men revile you. For the ones who come after you, it will be easier. They will accept their duties with willing hearts. She did not say: Because they will have no memories, of any other way. She said: Because they won't want things they can't have.'(117)

'I admired my mother in some ways, although things between us were never easy. She expected too much from me, I felt. She expected me to vindicate her life for her, and the choices she'd made. I didn't want to live my life on her terms. I didn't want to be the model offspring, the incarnation of her ideas. We used to fight about that. I am not your justification for existence. I said to her once. I want her back. I want everything back, the way it was. But there is no point to it, this wanting.'(122)

'She'll be allowed to nurse the baby, for a few months, they believe in mother's milk. After that she'll be transferred, to see if she can do it again, with someone else who needs a turn. But she'll never be sent to the Colonies, she'll never be declared Unwoman. That is her reward.'(127)

'Scrabble! I want to laugh, shriek with laughter, fall off my chair. This was once the game of old women, old men, in the summers or in retirement villas, to be played when there was nothing good on television. Or of adolescents, once, long long ago.... Now of course it's something different. Now it's forbidden, for us. Now it's dangerous. Now it's indecent. Now it's something he can't do with his Wife. Now it's desirable. Now he's compromised himself. It's as if he's offered me drugs.'(138)

'Nolite te bastardes carborundorum... Don't let the bastards grind you down.'(186)

'Every night when I go to bed I think, in the morning I will wake up in my own house and things will be back the way they were. It hasn't happened this morning, either.'(199)

'I would like to be without shame. I would like to be shameless. I would like to be ignorant. Then I would not know how ignorant I was.'(263)

'As all historians know, the past is a great darkness, and filled with echoes. Voices may reach us from it; but what they say to us is imbued with the obscurity of the matrix out of which they come and, try as we may, we cannot always decipher them precisely in the clearer light of our own day.'(311)

First Anchor Books Edition, April 1998
311 pages
Book owned

97. the GIVER

Lois Lowry 1993

A very thought-provoking novel. Imagine a perfect world without the hassles of conflicts nor war, without indecision nor ambiguity because everything is decided and chosen for you, without racism nor poverty because everyone is the same, and without pain nor disease because everything has a cure and a solution. This is the community where Jonas grew up, until he turned twelve, the year he is appointed the honor of being the next Receiver of Memory. As the memories pass to him from The Giver, he discovers and feels for the first time such things as color, music, belonging, loving, and having to make a choice between staying or leaving.

'It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened. No. Wrong word. Jonas thought. Frightened meant that deep, sickening feeling of something terrible about to happen.'(opening lines)

'Mirrors were rare in the community; they weren't forbidden, but there was no real need of them, and Jonas had simply never bothered to look at himself very often even when he found himself in a location where a mirror existed. Now, seeing the newchild and its expression, he was reminded that the light eyes were not only a rarity but gave the one who had them a certain look-- what was it? Depth, he decided;'(21)

'Stirrings. He had heard the word before. He remembered that there was a reference to the Stirrings in the Book of Rules, though he didn't remember what it said. And now and then the Speaker mentioned it. ATTENTION. A REMINDER THAT STIRRINGS MUST BE REPORTED IN ORDER FOR TREATMENT TO TAKE PLACE.(37)

"If you don't fit in, you can apply for Elsewhere and be released. My mother says that once, about ten years ago, someone applied and was gone the next day."(48)

'With the chant, Jonas, knew, the community was accepting him and his new role, giving him life, the way they had given it to the newchild Caleb. His heart swelled with gratitude and pride.
But at the same time he was filled with fear. He did not know what this selection meant. He did not know what he was to become.
Or what would become of him.'(64)

'5. From this moment you are are prohibited from dream-telling...
7. You are not permitted to apply for release.
8. You may lie.'(68)

'Sometimes I wish they'd ask for my wisdom more often-- there are so many things I could tell them; things I wish they would change. But they don't want change. Life here is so orderly, predictable-- so painless. It's what they've chosen.'(103)

"I knew that there had been times in the past-- terrible times-- when people had destroyed others in haste, in fear, and had brought about their own destruction."(112)

"The decision was made long before my time or yours," The Giver said, "and before the previous Receiver, and... Back and back and back." Jonas repeated the familiar phrase. Sometimes it had seemed humorous to him. Sometimes it had seemed meaningful and important.'(113)

'"The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.'(154)

a Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers book
180 pages
Book owned

95. MOCKINGJAY

Suzanne Collins 2010

In this suspenseful, action-packed third and final book of the Hunger Game Series, Katniss Everdeen becomes the rebels' Mockingjay, the symbol of their all out war against the Capitol and President Snow. Even as this last battle nearly breaks Katniss, she becomes the instrument of change for the city of Panem and the end of the horrible hunger games.

'I stare down at my shoes, watching as a fine layer of ash settles on the worn leather. This is where the bed I shared with my sister, Prim, stood.'(opening line)

'In my head I hear President Snow's words, spoken the morning I was to begin the Victory tour. "Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire, you have provided a spark that, left unattended, may grow to an inferno that destroy Panem.'(6)

'What they want is for me to truly take on the role they designed for me. The symbol of the revolution. The Mockingjay. It isn't enough, what I've done in the past, defying the Capitol in the Games, providing a rallying point. I must now become the actual leader, the face, the voice, the embodiment of the revolution.'(10)

'Positioned on my dresser, that white-as-snow rose is a personal message to me. It speaks of unfinished business. It whispers. I can find you. I can reach you. perhaps I am watching you now.'(15)

"Once you're in the arena, the rest of the world becomes very distant," he continues. "All the people and things you loved or cared about almost cease to exist. The pink sky and the monsters in the jungle and the tributes who want your blood become your final reality, the only one that ever mattered. As bad as it makes you feel, you're going to have to do some killing, because in the arena, you only get one wish. and it's very costly.'(23)

'I begin to fully understand the lengths to which people have gone to protect me. What I mean to the rebels. My on-going struggle against the Capitol, which has so often felt like a solitary journey, has not been undertaken alone. I have had thousands upon thousands of people from the districts at my side. I was their Mockingjay long before I accepted the role.'(90)

"President Snow says he's sending us a message? Well, I have one for him... Fire is catching!.. And if we burn, you burn with us!"(99)

"Ask yourself, do you really trust the people you're working with? Do you really know what's going on? And if you don't... find out."(113)

'Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where I told you to run, so we'd both be free.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.'(124)

'I'm not flailing now, as my muscles are rigid with the tension of holding myself together. The pain over my heart returns, and from it I imagine tiny fissures spreading out into my body. Through my torso, down my arms and legs, over my face, leaving it crisscrossed with cracks.'(154)

'That I knew that I have misjudged you. That you do love him. I'm not saying in what way. Maybe you don't know yourself. But anyone paying attention could see how much you care about him."(156)

'Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can't survuve without.'(329)

'... collective thinking is usually short-lived. We're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.'(379)

'What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again.'(388)

'Here it's safe, here it's warm
Here the daisies guard you from every harm
Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true
Here is the place where I love you.'(390)
_______________________________________

First Edition, September 2010
390 pages
Book owned

10. CATCHING FIRE

Suzanne Collins 2009

In this second book of the Hunger game series, Katniss has to fight her way out of the Capitol's intense desire to punish her severely. Her seemingly defiant behavior has now started a rebellion of the twelve districts of Penam against the Capitol.

"Every person in the crowd presses the three middle fingers of their left hand against their lips and extends them to me. It's our sign from District 12, the last good-bye I gave Rue in the arena."

"In that one slight motion, I see the end of hope, the beginning of the destruction of everything I hold dear in the world. I can't guess what form my punishment will take, how wide the net will be cast, but when it is finished, there will most likely be nothing left."

"I'm filled with awe, as I always am, as I watch her transform from a woman who calls me to kill a spider to a woman immune to fear. When a sick or dying person is brought to her... this is the only time I think my mother knows who she is."

"Now a new kind of confidence is lighting up inside of me, because I think I finally know who Haymitch is. And I'm beginning to know who I am. And surely, two people who have caused the Capitol so much trouble can think of a way to get Peeta home alive."

"Then I step away quickly to watch the reaction on the Gamemakers' faces as they read the name on the dummy."

"But I'm not naked. I'm in a dress of the exact design of my wedding dress, only it's the color of coal and made of tiny feathers. Wonderingly, I lift my long, flowing sleeves into the air, and that's when I see myself on the television screen."

9. the HUNGER GAMES

Suzanne Collins 2008

An engaging horrible reality TV in the future when North America is Penam and we are left to watching children kill each other off. It's not violent at all, if you can believe it. It's the story of a brave girl Katniss' survival of the hunger games.

'When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim's warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress. She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother. Of course, she did. This is the day of the reaping.'

'When I was younger, I scared my mother to death, the things I would blurt out about District 12, about the people who rule our country, Panem, from the far-off city called the Capitol.'

'The reaping system is unfair, with the poor getting the worst of it. You become eligible for the reaping the day you turn twelve. That year, your name is entered once. At thirteen, twice. And so on and so on until you reach the age of eighteen, the final year of eligibility, when your name goes into the pool seven times.'

'But a shift has occurred since I stepped up to take Prim's place, and now it seems I have become someone precious. At first one, then another, then almost every member of the crowd touched the three middle fingers of their left hand to their lips and holds it out to me...It means thanks, it means admiration, it means good-bye to someone you love.'

Oh well, I think. There will be twenty-four of us. Odds are someone else will kill him before I do.'

'At the last minute, I remember Madge's little gold pin. For the first time, I get a good look at it...I suddenly recognize it. A mockingjay.'

'But whenever my father sang, all the birds in the area would fall silent and listen. His voice was that beautiful, high and clear and so filled with life it made you want to laugh and cry at the same time.'

'A kind Peeta Mellark is far more dangerous to me than an unkind one. Kind people have a way of working their way inside me and rooting there.'

'I want the audience to recognize you when you're in the arena," says Cinna dreamily. "Katniss, the girl who was on fire."

"She's excellent," says Peeta. "My father buys her squirrels. He always comments on how the arrow never pierce the body. She hits every one in the eye. Its' the same with the rabbits she sells the butcher. She can even bring down deer.'

'Somehow the whole thing-his skill, those inaccessible cakes, the praise of the camouflage expert-annoys me. "It's lovely. If only you could frost someone to death," I say.'

'Well, there is this one girl. I've had a crush on her ever since I can remember. But I'm pretty sure she didn't know I was alive until the reaping.'

'Only I keep wishing I could think of a way to... to show the Capitol they don't own me. That I'm more than just a piece in their Games.'

'Ladies and gentlemen, let the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games begin!'

'I pick my tree carefully. A willow, not terribly tall but set in a clump of other willows, offering concealment in those long, flowing tresses. I climb up, sticking to the stronger branches close to the trunk, and find a sturdy fork for my bed.'

"Because we're going to be thrown into an arena to fight to the death. Exactly how am I supposed to work in a thank-you in there? Somehow it just won't seem sincere if I'm trying to slit his throat."

"He hasn't accepted his death. He is already fighting hard to stay alive. Which also means that kind Peeta Mellark, the boy who gave me bread, is fighting hard to kill me."

"Rue, who when you ask her what she loves most in the world replies, of all things, "Music." "Music?" I say. In our world, I rank music somewhere between ribbons and rainbows in terms of usefulness."