Scratch

Yesyesyes
I've read Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, The Giver, The Hunger Games, Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies, out of that list and probably in total
I liked them all except Hunger Games

It was predictable and not very well-written

Dinoclor wrote:

Wickimen wrote:

It was predictable and not very well-written

>

I'm sorry for having an opinion

I agree with Wickimen

Brave New World by Aldus Huxley

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

The Giver by Lois Lowry

The Hunger Games By Suzan Collins
1984 by Orwell

Lord of the Flies

and definetly I Am Alive by Cameron Jace which is
the only YA adult dystopia I read which is really a dystopia

course Maze Runner is ok too by James Dashner

Oo yes, The Lottery. I can't decide whether I loved or hated that story. Pretty crazy.

So, about The Hunger Games, I certainly understand why you might call it predictable, but could you explain how it is poorly written? Do you have any specific examples? I mean, I totally understand that it isn't fine literature or anything, but I didn't think it had any major writing flaws that prevented it from being a fun, interesting book.

Also, I think someone argued that Hunger Games isn't a true dystopia. Why not?

banana500 wrote:

scmb1 wrote:

I'm curious-- all of you who didn't like the Hunger Games, why didn't you like it?

I actually liked The Hunger Games, because truly it was a very interesting book, but I don't really consider it dystopian fiction. Yes, it involves a totalitarian ruling body. Yes, it involves some sort of evil and sinister plan of the ruling body. But it doesn't exactly focus on the dystopian elements, and more on romance and survival. I'd say Hunger Games is more...well, science fiction, maybe? That's my favorite genre of books, besides dystopian, of course.

As for it not being well-written, I have to agree with that. A lot of the sentences are simple fragments, such as this: "I was alone. Completely alone." That quote isn't from the book, but you get the idea. And fragments seriously bug me. The descriptions were pretty nice, but a lot of sentences were fragments. Fragments are bad!

Wickimen wrote:

^^1984 seemed really good from what I read of it, but I stopped because I'm not allowed to and felt guilty

Anyways, as for dystopian literature in general and not just novels, I really liked A Sound of Thunder (if that counts) and The Lottery

You weren't allowed to read 1984?

Yeah, I told my parents that I wanted to read it, and they didn't even know what it was about, so I checked it out from the library and read it.    It was great.

My parents are really strict
Which is why I conveniently forgot to tell them about borrowing Brave New World

banana500 wrote:

As for it not being well-written, I have to agree with that. A lot of the sentences are simple fragments, such as this: "I was alone. Completely alone." That quote isn't from the book, but you get the idea. And fragments seriously bug me. The descriptions were pretty nice, but a lot of sentences were fragments. Fragments are bad!

Ah, yes, I noticed the fragments too. They are all over the place, but they didn't bother me. I think an author (particularly an author of fiction) has the artistic right to mess with sentence structure a little bit. But that's just me-- maybe I'm weird. 

And I think you should read 1984! It was one of the first dystopias I read, and I liked it quite a bit.

Last edited by scmb1 (2012-05-27 17:41:28)

I really want to read the Giver. Also, I don't consider Animal Farm a dystopia because would you consider USSR a dystopia? Terrible, yes (communism done badly), a dystopia, no.
I've read all the Hunger Games novels, Animal Farm, this one about everyone living under the sea (that was more spacious), Pretties (reading at the moment-I'm a bit lost though) and I started reading 1984 but it got lost in my library list (tends to be 10-20-what? Don't look at me like that!).

soupoftomato wrote:

Wickimen wrote:

scmb1 wrote:

Ah, yes, I noticed the fragments too. They are all over the place, but they didn't bother me. I think an author (particularly an author of fiction) has the artistic right to mess with sentence structure a little bit. But that's just me-- maybe I'm weird. 

Fragments are acceptable, but The Hunger Games, in my opinion, was a bit choppy with not quite enough description. The best part was probably the reaping. It went downhill from there.

There was literally a part that more or less went like this:

I searched through the pack. A bottle, cheese, fruitcake.

(paraphrased, obviously)

As if you can't say "It contained" or "It had"
There is no SPECIAL need for fragmented emphasis there.

That's what I mean. It's just annoying and choppy

I disliked Dark Life as well
Pretties was pretty good, though it didn't compare to, say, The Giver

Last edited by Wickimen (2012-05-27 23:26:10)

I'm still not entirely sure what would be classed as "dystopian", so I'll just say my favourite one is The Hunger Games, because that's one of the ones you listed. 

SplatKirby wrote:

Wickimen wrote:

soupoftomato wrote:

There was literally a part that more or less went like this:

I searched through the pack. A bottle, cheese, fruitcake.

(paraphrased, obviously)

As if you can't say "It contained" or "It had"
There is no SPECIAL need for fragmented emphasis there.

That's what I mean. It's just annoying and choppy

It's first-person. It's narrated by a character. Katniss is simply saying (or, I guess, Suzanne Collins is) what she found in the pack (I'm putting emphasis on SAYING). We use fragments all the time in human speech, why be constricted in writing (especially in first-person)? What's more, the fragments seem not to bother anyone else. 

I don't care if no one else doesn't like it, as it's my own personal opinion 
That's what a personal opinion is, you see 
In any case, it wasn't only the fragments I didn't like. She just isn't very talented with words 

jukyter wrote:

banana500 wrote:

jukyter wrote:

I really want to read the Giver. Also, I don't consider Animal Farm a dystopia because would you consider USSR a dystopia? Terrible, yes (communism done badly), a dystopia, no.
I've read all the Hunger Games novels, Animal Farm, this one about everyone living under the sea (that was more spacious), Pretties (reading at the moment-I'm a bit lost though) and I started reading 1984 but it got lost in my library list (tends to be 10-20-what? Don't look at me like that!).

Then read The Giver. You won't regret it, trust me. 

Animal Farm isn't dystopian, I have to agree. It's an allegory. Also, the one about everyone under the sea; you're talking about Dark Life, right?

Yes, that's it! I'm glad I got it for free, because to be honest, it wasn't the best.

I got it at my school book fair, and I liked it.