Lenore's Dystopian February - Coming Soon

When it comes to books there are a lot of little milestones that happen every year, or a few times a year, that make me very happy. There is always the two book fairs at my local elementary school (especially the Buy One, Get One Free one in March) and LTUE - a symposium formally at BYU focusing on speculative fiction and featuring panels from some of Utah's best authors. But there is another semi annual event that is near and dear to my heart. And the best thing about it? You can be part of it too! It is happening right here on the interwebs and is hosted by Lenore from Presenting Lenore.

Do you know what it is?

OF COURSE! 

 IT IS DYSTOPIAN FEBRUARY.

Lenore and I first met through twitter shortly before she had her first dystopian month. I remember it quite clearly, someone started about dystopia and SUDDENLY the topic blew up for 40 minutes on my Twitter stream and I had made at least a dozen new friends. When Lenore had her first dystopian February I was beyond excited, this was in 2010 and believe it or not a lot of people didn't even really know what dystopia was. I spent a lot of time on twitter helping people define and understand the concept. Now dystopia is a (young adult) sensation. It is fascinating how dystopia has since become a large part of our shared lexicon. In the post Hunger Games reading world people are eager to find more books that show the possible futures of our existence.

I have eagerly followed Lenore's dystopian months ever since (Feb and Aug). It has been fun reading and reading about so many dystopian books. It has been a passion of mine for a long time and I love being able to see other people sharing in that interest. One thing about the past two years that is particularly exciting for me is that now Lenore has a forthcoming book, Level Two, which will definitely have some dystopian tones. This is pretty exciting for me as a fan of the genre to see a friend having a book coming out. I honestly cannot wait to read it.

 There are many understandings of dystopia and this is often a surprisingly controversial issue. I want to preface this month of dystopian reviews by saying I am purposely taking a broad umbrella to the term dystopia. When it comes to reading enjoyable stories, I have used the term to help me find the type of stories that interest me. Though it is often quite clear that a book is not clearly dystopia, I still enjoy the book and was happy to be able to find it. Often times the opposite is true too. I find a book that a resent for not living up to its dystopian label. This is more about personal preference and personal bias than anything exceedingly concrete, but I am also opening over the month of Feburary to explore deeper the meaning of dystopian and what I want from a dystopian novel.

I hope you will considering sharing your dystopian reads with Lenore and myself this February. For a list of ideas here are the dystopian books Lenore has reviewed over the past few years. She has also posted a preview of what books she will be reviewing this upcoming month.

As for me, since finding a wonderful list of young adult dystopian titles, I have been slowly building my home dystopian library. Here are the majority of the books here on my dystopian shelf.

I have close to 150 books to choose from, plus quite a few on my Nook, and audiobooks from my library's digital collection. What dystopian books do you have on your TBR? I look forward to reading about the books YOU decide to read this dystopian February!