Reblog if you’ve actually read The Hunger Games before the movie came out.

(Source: mell4rkbakery, via ichigowolf)

The moment in your life when you’ve seen the Hunger Games and life just needs to stop for a while so I can deal with all the emotions but I have a chemistry test tomorrow and so I have to bottle them up and wish I wasn’t broke so I could go see it again.

Books You All Should Have Read as a Child, But Didn’t Because You Didn’t Live at a Library Like I Did

So the Hunger Games just came out. And I just went and saw it and as someone who sincerely loved the books, I thought it was pretty darn awesome. I’m still exceedingly stoked about it, but I’m sure I’ll calm down soon. Or not.

But all that is beside the point. The Hunger Games coming out made me start thinking about books, in particular books I read as a child (or young adult, I guess), and one of the many things I realized is that I read a whole load of books that few have heard about. And I think that’s a shame because they’re wonderful, so in honor of the incredible Hunger Games, I give to you, in no specific order, a list of

Books that You Should Have Read (And Still Have Time To) :

1. The Hungry City Chronicles by Philip Reeve (Alternate title: The Mortal Engines Quartet)     

Appropriate that these should be named Hungry. A story that is also about a post-apocalyptic world, albeit sent in a much wider setting. Think steam-punk meets societal survival. The gist of the premise is that after a great war (not fully explained, but you’re given enough details to piece something together) the world was left in shambles, the land unproductive and mostly dead. Society survives by living on giant, mechanical, moving cities. In turn, the cities survive by “eating” smaller cities (hence the “Hungry” City) and scavenging parts and supplies off of them. 

This series is marvelous and well worth the time to read all four novels (also, there is a prequel series Reeve has written, and while personally I have not read it, they promise to be just as grand as the previous books).

2. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Probably the best science fiction series I have ever read. If you like space and the controversy of children soldiers and all around excellent writing, then please, please read this book and its followers. Card is one of my favorite writers, and even if you don’t read books in order to think, this is still a wonderful read.

The protagonist, Ender, is a third in a world where two children is the norm. He is sent to a space academy where they train children to be soldiers to fight the enemy aliens, the buggers. Once there he is first seen as an outcast, but quickly proves himself. 

The ending is- well, once again one of the best I’ve ever read. Read these.

3. I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

You may recognize this author because you’ve read The Book Thief (and if you have, I applaud you, whoever you may be) which is an excellent book by all accounts, but this may be my more favorite of the two. A bildungsroman of sorts, it tells the story of an underage cab driver in Australia, who’s car’s a piece of crap, has a dog named the Doorman, and likes a girl who is already in a relationship. He’s normal, but after he helps stop a bank-robbery he begins receiving playing cards in the mail, and his life gets flipped, turned upside down! (Fresh Prince of Bel-Air anyone? Anyone? or not…)

I’ve come to realize this book is not for everyone, and if this small snapshot of the plot doesn’t seem to interest you, please give it a chance. It’s funny, dark, comical, and so like life (well, kind of) that it’s still one of my favorite books.

4. The Old Kingdom Trilogy by Garth Nix

Once again, you may have heard Garth Nix’s name in association with such other series as The Seventh Tower and The Keys to the Kingdom. Well, if you were a fan of those (or not), then these are also great. I read them once when I was young and enjoyed them immensely, and am now reading them again and still think they are amazing. 

It’s necromancy in reverse; the main character of the first novel, Sabriel is raised by her father the Abhorsen to put the dead to rest, not to raise them. But when her father is in trouble and himself on the path through the gates to the final death, Sabriel must take up the mantel he has left her and follow him into the Old Kingdom.

A unique premise as far as I’m concerned. Music is also tightly tied into the magic in this book, which I found to be an appealing aspect. Either way, these were a good read.

5. The Queen’s Thief Series by Megan Whalen Turner 

I only recently found these books, but they are incredible. The setting is close to a mixture of Ancient Greek and Medieval England, if anything. The lands are ruled in what is most closely a traditional monarchy, but their religion is polytheistic. What this does give is a rich culture, and paired with a fantastic setting lends for a marvelous adventure.

This is only the surface of these books however. For me, the real draw were the characters themselves, and the relationships between them all. If I say too much, things would be given away, but they all are well written with many layered plots. These are great, please read.

6. The Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins

No, your eyes did not deceive you. Yes, this is another series written by Suzanne Collins, the author of the Hunger Games. I read these books a long time ago, and they nearly made me cry at the end. Collins has this incredible way of making you so attached to characters, and anything you felt while reading about Katniss and the gang you will assuredly feel when reading about the adventures of Gregor.

The premise for this one is that a boy, Gregor, stumbles upon the entrance to a world that lives underneath New York. Here, the people live in the eternal dark of an underground world, ride bats, fight against giant rats, and coexist with a variety of other abnormally large creatures that are associated with the dark.

A word of warning: if you dislike cockroaches, they’re there too.

But don’t let the over-sized creepy crawlies turn you off. Once again, the characters are amazing; Gregor is a person dealing with normal teenage things and all the stress associated from trying to live a normal life while simultaneously fighting wars underground. If you enjoyed the Hunger Games, you’ll like these.

7. The Chaos Walking Trilogy by Patrick Ness

And finally, probably my favorite trilogy. This is a series unlike any I had read before; it is written in the style known as “stream of consciousness”, and it is excellent. What this means is that it is like first person perspective on steroids. Not only do you see the events through the eyes of a single character, it comes present tense as that persons thoughts. This is no simple feat, but Ness pulls it off to perfection (in my humble opinion).

The story is set in the future, on a planet that is being newly colonized. In the beginning, the setting is reminiscent of a frontier story, until you learn through the narrator Todd that there is a disease on this planet that infects the men. What this does is it makes it so that all men’s thoughts are broadcast to the world. Anyone and everyone can hear and see exactly what you’re thinking about. Imagine that (or don’t, its relatively frightening).

Anyway, the story heats up when Todd discovers a girl and a crashed space shuttle. This is a singular event, namely because there are no women in Todd’s town. Also, the disease of this planet doesn’t affect women; they are “silent”, as the case may be, although they too can hear the men’s “noise”. Turns out that the men of Todd’s town want her dead, so Todd and the girl escape together, setting off a chain of events that will change their lives and the planet forever.

These books are amazing. Ness has a spectacular writing ability that makes you want to hate a character, then love them, then despise them, until you are just so full of emotion it is nearly impossibly to contain them. And that’s just it really; every character in this book is so completely human. They are not all good, and not all bad, but a mixture of the two that is constantly changing. I cannot express how much I love these books. Read them. Read them now.

And that’s a selection of books I was obsessed with (still am, really, let us be real), but I figured I’d share them with you all. Now that Harry Potter has concluded, Twilight is (praise be to all that is good in this world) almost finished, and the Hunger Games are on the movie roll, all you avid readers must be looking for something to satisfy that young-adult-novel craving, so I hope at least one of these may fill that hole in your heart. 

Also, if you didn’t like the Hunger Games, or Harry Potter or any of these, I truly, truly don’t care. Unless I’ve made an error here, or you have some constructive criticism to add (and I use constructive here very strongly), you can keep your flaming to yourself. I am quite skilled with the use of scathing commentary and my vocabulary is so wide I practically exude syllables so keep it polite.

Thanks and I hope I opened your eyeballs to some great literature.