Hello and welcome to Bathtub Book Club, Isolation Edition! If you’re reading this in 2020, you’re likely spending a lot of time at home or dreading leaving your home. Since pretty much all new news right now is a certain level of exhausting, we decided to stick with the familiar and re-read a book that we’ve both read before.
Since I read Fahrenheit 451 my freshman year of high school, I have deeply enjoyed reading dystopian literature. The best part is that there is so much dystopian literature out there, I get tired of reading them before I run out of books to read. Most of the dystopian books that I read are “classics” - Bradbury, Huxley, Atwood, etc.- but I recently came across a debut novel with a plot that caught my attention. I’ve never read A Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, but I’m told that this book is similar in nature - it just has a different twist.
Halloween is fast approaching! So, in the spirit of the season, I decided to read a thriller that includes zombies, automatons, cyborgs, alchemy, and people with mutation-caused fishy qualities.
Bethany: So...I do this thing where I wander around bookstores and pick up all of the books and then buy WAYYYY too many of the ones that I like. That’s how I came across Cinder, the first book in the Lunar Chronicles.
Ever since we had the idea of doing author spotlights, I knew I wanted to do one on Octavia Butler; I just needed to read more of her books first. Well, now I have, and I just want to read more of them. Like, every single one. Including (maybe especially) the ones she never finished.
I first noticed The Selection, by Kiera Cass, at the Barnes & Noble in the Mayo Clinic when my sister was admitted there for a few days while I was in graduate school. I am a sucker for a YA dystopian story with a strong female lead and this one seemed right up my ally - there was romance, intrigue, and even a prince. The Selection is not a stand alone novel and that is pretty clear from the description of the book. So, I bought the series.
Bathtub Book Club 