INDEPENDENT READING
· THE
COMPOUND-S.A. BODEN
Eli
and his family have lived in the underground Compound for six years.
The world they knew is gone, and they’ve become accustomed to their new
life.
Accustomed, but not happy. No amount of luxury can stifle the
dull routine of living in the same place, with only his two sisters,
only his father and mother, doing the same thing
day after day after day. As problems with their carefully planned
existence threaten to destroy their sanctuary—and their sanity—Eli can’t
help but wonder if he’d rather take his chances outside. Eli’s father
built the Compound to keep them safe. But are they
safe—really?
· THE
ADORATION OF JENNA FOX-MARY E. PEARSON
Who is Jenna Fox? Seventeen-year-old Jenna has been told that is her name.
She
has just awoken from a coma, they tell her, and she is still recovering
from a terrible accident in which she was involved a year ago. But what
happened before that? Jenna doesn't
remember her life. Or does she? And are the memories really hers?
· DOUBLE
HELIX-NANCY WERLIN
Eighteen-year-old
Eli discovers a shocking secret about his life and his family while
working for a Nobel Prize-winning scientist whose specialty
is genetic engineering.
· HUNGER GAMES TRILOGY-SUZANNE
COLLINS
Katniss is a 16-year-old girl
living with her mother and younger sister
in the poorest district of Panem, the remains of what used be the
United States. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were
defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send
one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised
event called, "The Hunger Games." The terrain, rules, and level of
audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be
killed. When Kat's sister is chosen by lottery, Kat steps up to go in
her place.
· THE
DEAD AND GONE-SUSAN BETH PFEFFER
After
a meteor hits the moon and sets off a series of horrific climate
changes, seventeen-year-old Alex Morales must take care of his sisters
alone
in the chaos of New York City.
· UNWIND-NEAL
SHUSTERMAN
Three
teens embark upon a cross-country journey in order to escape from a
society that salvages body parts from children ages thirteen to
eighteen.
· THE
ROAD-CORMAC MCCARTHY
Traces the journey of a father and his son as they walk alone after a great fire
has consumed the nation and left everything in ashes.
· ACROSS
THE UNIVERSE-BETH REVIS
Amy,
having been cryogenically frozen and placed onboard a spaceship which
was supposed to land on a distant planet three hundred years in the
future,
is unplugged fifty
years too early and finds herself stuck inside an enclosed world ruled
by a tyrannical leader and his rebellious teenage heir and confused
about who to trust and
why someone is trying to kill her.
· GENESIS
ALPHA-RUNE MICHAELS
When thirteen-year-old josh's
beloved older brother, max, is arrested
for murder, the victim's sister leads josh to evidence of max's
guilt--and her own--hidden in their favorite online role-playing game
and josh, who was conceived to save max's life years earlier, must
consider whether he shares that guilt.
· LEVIATHAN-SCOTT
WESTERFIELD
In
an alternate 1914 Europe, fifteen-year-old Austrian Prince Alek, on the
run from the Clanker Powers who are attempting to take over the globe
using
mechanical machinery, forms an uneasy alliance with Deryn who, disguised as a boy to join the British Air Service, is learning to fly genetically-engineered beasts.
· DECLARATION-GEMMA
O’MALLEY
In 2140 England, where drugs enable people to live forever and children are illegal, teenaged Anna, an obedient "surplus"
training to become a house servant, has her world view challenged when
she meets peter and discovers that her birth parents are trying to find
her.
· ASHES, ASHES-JO
TREGGIARI
In a future Manhattan devastated by environmental catastrophes and epidemics,
sixteen-year-old Lucy survives alone until vicious hounds target her
and force her to join Aidan and his band, but soon they learn that she
is the target of Sweepers, who kidnap and infect people with plague.
· CANDOR-PAM
BACHORZ
For a fee, "model teen"
Oscar Banks has been secretly--and selectively--
sabotaging the subliminal messages that program the behavior of the
residents of Candor, Florida, until his attraction to a rebellious new
girl threatens to expose his subterfuge.
· CARBON
DIARIES, 2017-SACI LLOYD
In
2017, two years after England introduces carbon dioxide rationing to
combat climatic change, eighteen-year-old Laura chronicles her first
year
at a London university as natural disasters and political upheaval
disrupt her studies.
· THE
CELL-STEPHEN KING
Maine
artist Clayton Riddell, elated after closing the deal for his first
comic book, comes down to earth quickly when a brain-zapping energy
burst--the
pulse--strikes, reducing cell phone users to zombie-like creatures, and
leaving Clayton desperate to find a way home from Boston to see if his wife and son have survived.
· CHERRY HEAVEN-L.J.
ALDINGTON
Kat
and Tanka J leave the war-torn city, move with their adoptive parents
to the New Frontier, and are soon settled into a home called Cherry Heaven,
but Luka, an escaped factory worker, confirms their suspicion that New Frontier is not the utopia it seems to be.
· UGLIES-SCOTT
WESTERFIELD
Tally is faced with a difficult choice when her new friend shay decides to risk life on the outside rather than
submit to the forced operation that turns sixteen year old girls into
gorgeous beauties, and realizes that there is a whole new side to the
pretty world that she doesn't like.
· SO YESTERDAY-SCOTT
WESTERFIELD
Hunter Braque, a New York city teenager who is
paid
by corporations to spot what is "cool, " combines his analytical skills
with girlfriend Jen's creative talents to find a missing person and
thwart a conspiracy directed at the
heart of consumer culture.
· THE GAME-MON
HUGHES
It’s the future, and most jobs
are done by machines. Now that school
is over, Lisse and her friends are consigned to a bleak neighborhood
for the permanently unemployed. Then they receive an invitation to the
Game—which transports them to a paradise. Is it a dream, or a computer
simulation? Each time they play the Game, the
new world seems more and more real.
· GIRL PARTS-JOHN
M. CUSICK
The
lives of Charlie, wealthy and popular but still lonely, and Charlie, a
soulful outsider, intersect when Rose, the female Companion bot
Charlie's
parents buy to treat his dissociative disorder, forms a bond with David.
· HOST-STEPHANIE
MEYER
Melanie,
whose mind has been almost completely taken over by an alien named
wanderer, convinces the alien to search for her lost lover, who fled the
extraterrestrial invasion, and tries to find a way in which she and wanderer can coexist.
· HOUSE OF THE SCORPION-NANCY
FARMER
In
a future where humans despise clones, Matt enjoys special status as the
young clone of el Patrón, the 142-year-old leader of a corrupt drug
empire nestled between Mexico and the United States.
· INFERIOR-PEADER
O’GUILIN
In
a brutal world where hunting and cannibalism are necessary for
survival, something is going terribly wrong as even the globes on the
roof of the
world are fighting, but one young man, influenced by a beautiful and mysterious stranger, begins to envision new possibilities.
· MONSTER OF MEN-PATRICK
NESS
As a world-ending war surges to life around them, Todd and Viola face monstrous decisions, questioning all they have ever known
as they try to step back from the darkness and find the best way to achieve peace.
· NEVER LET ME GO-KAZUO
ISHIGURO
Thirty-one-year-old
Kathy, along with old friends from Hailsham, a private school in
England, are forced to face the truth about their childhood
when they all come together again.
· POD-STEPHEN
WALLENFELS
As
alien spacecraft fill the sky and zap up any human being who dares to
go outside, fifteen-year-old Josh and twelve-year-old Megs, living in
different
cities, describe what could be their last days on Earth.
· PREY-MICHAEL
CRICHTON
A
cloud of Nanoparticles programmed as a predator and capable of
self-reproduction escapes from a Nevada laboratory and makes the human
population
its target.
· SHIP BREAKER-PAOLO
BACIGALUPI
In all the years she has
watched the wolves in the woods behind her
house, Grace has been particularly drawn to an unusual yellow-eyed wolf
who, in his turn, has been watching her with increasing intensity.
· SKINNED-ROBIN
WASSERMAN
Lia Kahn's family pays for the most advanced medical
technology to save
her when her body is devastated in a horrible accident, but when the
operations are complete, Lia remains alive but her body does not.
· SUPERNATURALIST-EOIN
COLFER
In futuristic satellite city, fourteen-year-old Cosmo hill escapes
from
his abusive orphanage and teams up with three other people who share
his unusual ability to see supernatural creatures, and together they
determine the nature and purpose of the swarming blue parasites that are
invisible to most humans.
· THINNER
THAN THOU-KIT REED
Rev.
Earl's luxury spa, Sylphania, is the rage for those with severe eating
disorders until Jeremy Devlin enters and discovers the dark secrets at
the core of earl's empire.
· WEBMAGE-KELLY
MCCOULLOUGH
The fates of ancient Greece have gone digital
in the twenty-first century,
ruling human destiny through a server known as the fate core, but when
Atropos decides to code a spell to eliminate free will, her modern-day
nephew Ravirn, a hacker-Extraordinaire, pulls out all his tricks to stop
her.
· LITTLE BROTHER-COREY
DOCTOROW
Interrogated
for days by the department of homeland security in the aftermath of a
major terrorist attack on San Francisco, California, seventeen-year-old
Marcus is released into what is now a police state, and decides to use his expertise in computer hacking to set things right.
