HUNGER GAMES

The wait, the long wait, is over at last. Hunger Games -- featuring a fantastic cast and directed by the guy who brought us Big and Mr. Baseball (if you're under the age of 20, ignore that last part)-- is here at last!

To celebrate, we thought we'd run down a few of our favorite YA dystopian novels/series because, well, there's been a heck of a lot of great ones coming out lately. And on top of that, dark, foreboding books about how doomed we all are both awesome and freakishly interesting to read. So if Hunger Games kept you up late don't hesitate to consider one of the following which take up many of the same themes as the HG series and do really fun and interesting things with them.

For starters, you can't go wrong with Ally Condie's Matched (Speak, $7.99, 400 pgs) series. Set in a world where citizens wholeheartedly trust Society and what it tells them to read, watch, eat, and etc, everything is going just great for young Cassia until the fateful day of her Mate Matching ceremony, when so called 'computer glitch' and the cascading love that follows forces Cassia to rethink everything she's ever known.

Beth Revis' Across the Universe (Razorbill, $7.99, 416 pgs) -- Another crowd pleaser is Revis' Across the Universe series. In it, young Amy is a cryogenically frozen passenger aboard the voluminous spaceship Godspeed who expects to wake up 300 years in the future on a new planet. When she's woken up 50 years too early and nearly killed, Amy is startled to find herself in a strange, enclosed world where all power has been usurped by a tyrannical leader and his brilliant and seemingly kind son, named Elder. Action ensues.  A real page turner that you won't want to miss!

James Dashner's Maze Runner (Ember, $7.99, 400 pgs) -- One of my favorites! When Thomas is woken on The Lift he not only has no idea where he is, he has no idea who he's been. A name. That's what he calls his own. And the funny thing is that the rest of the so called 'Gladers,' in the new world he's found himself in are in the same boat. All they know is that every morning the stone doors to the maze around them open, every night they close, and that every 30 days another boy comes up the lift. When a girl with a strange message shows up on The Lift the day after Thomas's arrival, Thomas realizes he may be more important than he knows -- if only he could remember something. An exciting book and a quick read!

And of course that's only the tip of the ice berg! Write with more of your favorite suggestions or drop by to check out some others!