(Part 2) Best products from r/YAwriters

Adult Dystopian Recommendations:

• Oryx and Crake – Jimmy/Snowman coasts through life fueled mainly by ennui. His only rebellion is to be mediocre when his advantages in society (white, upper (maybe middle) class, Western male) have him poised for success. Glenn/Crake deliberately turns himself into the Big Bad in order to correct the wrongs he sees in society. Whether his main issue is with human nature, sucking the planet dry, socially stratified capitalist society, willful ignorance, or insatiety and curiosity is unclear. Oryx sees it all and accepts them all, knowing that she’s too unimportant to do anything except pick up the pieces and provide comfort in the meantime.
  
  
• The Year of the Flood – The world and especially capitalist society is stacked against you, but resourcefulness and an open mind will serve you well.
  
  
• The Handmaid’s Tale – Quiet rebellions like memory and record-keeping can be subversive also. But it’s only actions that set the stage for change. And the people you (maybe?) save will interpret everything differently from your intentions anyways.
  
  
• Never Let Me Go – Is it truly a dystopia when only a small group is affected? If you’re thinking of reading this, do not under any circumstances watch the movie trailer. The slow build to “something is not quite right” is part of the charm.
  
  
• Into the Forest – Literary fiction. More about acceptance and regression to a [“natural”](#s "and feminist, which apparently means incestuous but Deep! and Thematically! incestuous") state.
  
  
• Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress – Historical fiction about Chinese reeducation camps, but still pretty dystopian. Bourgeois teenage boy questions his educated, upper-class roots and teaches peasant love interest about Western literature. [She](#s "abandons him for a capitalist dream because the lesson she took from it was that love was worthless. Basically, they both take away the worst parts of each other’s starting philosophies and smash them together.")
  
  
• Wild Ginger – If historical fiction is happening, why not another Cultural Revolution one? If you keep your head down, you might just survive long enough to grow up and really see the hypocrisy – stuff even greater than what you saw as a kid.
  
  
• 1984 – Isn’t this more about how the system will break you and leave you a husk of your former self if you trust anyone completely? So you should be smart and skeptical and never assume things are in your best interest just because someone’s telling you so.
  
  
• Brave New World – Have to admit, at 12 this had me thinking that maybe fascism wasn’t such a bad idea after all. The despair and existential crisis aspects weren’t hitting me then: I just noticed how happy almost everyone else was.
  
  
• The Road – All about bleakness and futility and carrying on because the hope of family’s the only good thing left?
  
  
• Fahrenheit 451, where the people in charge are corrupt specifically concerning that thing you're fighting against.
  
  
• World War Z – I’m almost hesitant to call this dystopian, because even though it’s about a freaking zombie apocalypse, it’s uplifting to hear all the stories of human resourcefulness and ingenuity and the mental strength you didn’t think was there. Of course, some of the stories covered are “logical responses” gone bad.
  
  YA-ish Dystopian Recommendations:
  
  
• Feed – It doesn’t work out for the only [person](#s "(Violet)") who truly fought the system (she’s beaten down so horribly that it’s heartbreaking that even the reader wants to look away), but she does technically inspire one other person to at least notice what’s going on in the world, even if it’s probably too late.
  
  
• Hunger Games – Katniss is really only involved because she has nowhere else to go. Side characters have real motivations for being involved, but she really is a figurehead along for the ride and that’s OK. The story is about that and how she copes.
  
  
• The Selection – cough Popcorn cough. America is highly motivated by money (For her struggling family, of course). Ignoring the love triangle stuff, her ideal is to move from serfdom to literally any other [political system.](#s "And this never happens. The political buildup you see in The Selection and The Elite is stomped all over in the vapid cheesecake of the love hexagon finale.")
  
  
• Incarceron & Sapphique – Finn’s rebellion is that he just wants out to someplace that must be better. Claudia lives in artificial luxury and rebels mostly just for personal rebellion, not anyone else’s sake.
  
  
• The Giver – Probably more MG, but how did running away from one collective society automatically become “capitalism is best?” Jonah runs away because he’s learned enough to make his own moral decisions about one of the helpless members of his society (and artificial protection sounds socialist to me). I can’t remember reading the sequels.
  
  
• The Book Thief – Again, MG and historical fiction about a bombed out German town in WWII, but I think a setting like that qualifies it as dystopian. Technically, Liesl fights the system by stealing (possibly forbidden) books from the wealthy and by not reporting the Jew in the basement, but that last one is just showing loyalty to her new family. Her entire upbringing predisposed her to not trust the System, especially a War System, anyways.
  
  Other Dystopias:
  
  
• Matched and Delirium will be considered together because they are the same damn book, right down to the Boy-Who-Could-Have-Been-Chosen-If-Not-For-Rebellion! and the protagonist’s government-approved hobby. Delirium has better writing. Matched is easier to read and has more likable characters. We get it, teenagers should be allowed to date who they like and mommy and daddy non-biological guardians shouldn’t say no. Also, it sucks to have a guidance counselor Make A Schedule for you in order to prepare you for an office job equivalent that’s full of busywork but one of the few respectable positions left. The horror! Seriously, in what world is that rebelling against socialism? You know, that thing that promotes trade schools and equal rights for everyone, even the people you don’t personally like?
  
  
• Divergent – I’m going to let someone else handle that one because urgh. I know a lot of people like it, and it’s YA, so someone else, please support, qualify, or refute.
  
  I’d also be curious to hear what /u/bethrevis has to say about the societies on Godspeed and elsewhere and where they fit into this opinion piece.
  
  Guys, I think I just wrote an English essay. And probably put more work into it than I did in high school. And I won’t even get an A because it’s the internet and we deal solely in lolcats.
  
  But tl;dr: Adult dystopias (that I’ve read) tend to be about the futility of existence or the necessity of self-sacrifice to get a result. The YA dystopias I liked were a little more hopeful (usually) and didn’t support this opinion piece’s thesis. The ones I didn’t like made me understand the hate for dystopias.

Something personally awesome: I fenced my first epee tournament this weekend! I struggled in opens, but won some of my matches in women's pools.

And now, onto the writing part. :)

I'm self-pubbing a series! I started writing it and realized it's something I wanted to do for this particular story. It's heavily anime inspired, and it's a portal fantasy with lots of action, snark, and nerdy women being awesome. The Corner Store Witch is on $0.99 pre-order, and if you're a NetGalley person, it's up there for the month, too.

Blurb:

Leone owns Pulp Magic (Comics, Books, Games, & More). Angry customers are her biggest concern--until a man from another world literally drops into her shop. And oni have followed him. Leone defends herself with a magical staff, which marks her with powerful runes. Her supernatural tattoo sleeves make her desperately thirsty, yet practically allergic to water--and oh, they foretell the fate of the realms of demons, gods, and men.

With her four friends and inter-dimensional guide, Leone travels to the realm of the gods, searching for magical cosmetic surgery. She doesn't want to carry the fate of the world literally on her arms. But the truth she finds--of a war raging between worlds--changes her, challenges her.

What's a nerd to do with the fate of all worlds at stake? Ah yes, kick some demon ass.

The Chronicles of Narnia but with more swearing, more katanas, and less allegory. It's nerdy, anime inspired fun for the whole family.

What I did this year:

I dived into self publishing with The Body Electric and learned that self publishing is far, far different from traditional publishing. After becoming a member of KBoards, I've learned a ton about the process. I've also realized that, right now, self publishing is really not a viable career option for me. I have two books still contracted with Penguin, and am working on another to go on sub with my agent, and while the process is slower, it suits me more and is more profitable than self pub for me...at this stage. I do still plan to put out some short stories and novellas, and I've been working on Paper Hearts in the background, which will likely be self pub as well, but it's not something I'll likely be turning to for a full career, at least not yet.

What I want to happen

Outside of my control:
I won't have a book out this year (other than, potentially Paper Hearts and short story collections), but I'd like to have two books out next year. We'll see if that's viable. I've done all I can--I have two complete manuscripts--but timing in publishing is notoriously slow.

Inside of my control: In additional to revising the two manuscripts that I've got completed, I'd like to write two more. That's going to be difficult with editing schedules, etc., but I have the ideas for two more manuscripts, and I think I can do it. We'll see. But that's the goal.

tl;dr: Outside of my control: publish two books. Inside of my control: write two other books.

Reading Goals:
I plan on reading 50 books this year--that's my sweet spot, I've found--but I'm going to challenge myself to read three books I normally wouldn't. I don't know if the three will be nonfiction or adult or featuring a story I wouldn't normally pick up, but I definitely want to challenge myself to break my routine and go outside the box with three books.

My last year goals was to write two books--and I did! :)