One of my aims for this year on Bart’s Bookshelf is to increase the number of interviews and guest posts I am able to post share with you. A few weeks back, during the Bloggiesta, I tweeted a call for interviews, one of the first to respond was Emma Newman, author of an upcoming [...]

“That was an effing brilliant read.  Only I don’t say ‘effing’ do I?”

Sorry you’re not going to get a synopsis with this one, no way, no how. The only way to go into this one is blind, folks. So I’m just going to talk about the experience of reading it.
…Not that I could sum up [...]

People, people, people, why didn’t you make me read this book earlier? What, you did, you say? Oh right, my bad then…
Okay, okay, so I totally pinched my intro to this review from Chris’ review of the same book! But the sentiment stands!
This is everything a book should be, great concept, even [...]

Image ©96dpi
A few months ago, I posted about the Top Five YA Dystopian novels I had read in the last year…
I received some great suggestions to add to the list in the comments to that post, and I myself have read some other great books that didn’t meat the criteria of being read in the [...]

Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless.
- John Ruskin, The Stones of Venice, I

About the Book
Tally has finally become ‘pretty’. Her looks are beyond perfect, her clothes are cool, her boyfriend’s gorgeous, and she’s completely popular.
It’s everything she’s ever wanted. But beneath all the fun – the nonstop parties, [...]

Is it not good to make society full of beautiful people? – Yang Yuan, quoted in The New York Times

About the Book
Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can’t wait. Not for her license — for turning pretty. In Tally’s world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly [...]

dys⋅to⋅pi⋅a [dis-toh-pee-uh]
–noun
a society characterized by human misery, as squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding.
Time for another favourite/tops list and this time I thought it might be fun to take a look at my favourite dystopian young adult books I’ve read over the last year or so (that I’ve been book-blogging):

1

The Hunger Games
Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it [...]

About the Book
Twelve year old Luke Garner, is not like most twelve year olds. He’s never been to school, and whilst for most kids this would be something to celebrate it also means he’s never spent time with friends – or had friends even.
You see, in the years before Luke was born, the government passed [...]