Technology, Dystopia and Young Adults VI

This list has been updated: a newer, expanded version can be found at  http://richardshakeshaft.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/young-adult-fiction-technology-reading.html 17 February, 2017

My reading continues as new books are published, and over the past few months I have read various new books, but also several sequels to books I've previously listed. This is therefore the latest instalment of the reading I have been doing since my fifth such blog post last November, and I think the slight delay is down to having read the books on the Carnegie shortlist through April and May.

As always, this is a collection of primary texts which are connected by the common thread of incorporating technology within their plots, and increasingly being concerned with the nature of humanity in technocentric worlds. For other readers this, and my previous posts, remain a remarkably up-to-date list of YA novels in this genre; my Amazon account still has some yet-to-be-published novels listed in the current orders, I keep scouring publishers' book lists for new additions, and I have more texts sitting awaiting my attention so this is unlikely to be my final reading list post (although I know I am going to have to stop reading soon...)

The order of the list is simply the order in which I have read the texts, and there is therefore no significance to the order. I have included a brief descriptions against each title, but each image links to Amazon where fuller descriptions and reviews can be found.

	The Different Girl - Gordon Dalquist (2013) Four nearly identical girl live on a desert island with two adults who care for them and teach them. Unexpectedly a shipwreck brings a very different kind of girl to the island and her presence makes the girls question their own existence.
	The Predicteds - Christine Seifert (2011) The experimental Profile programme is able to determine students' future behaviour, and the 'bad kids' names are kept on a list of Predicteds. The protagonist, Daphne, falls for Jesse, but his name is on the list.
	The Best of All Possible Worlds - Karen Lord (2013) The Sadiri were once the galaxy's ruling élite, but now their home planet and most of the population has been destroyed. Impulsive civil servant Grace Delarua is assigned to work with a controlled and taciturn Sadiri Councillor, on a mission to visit distant communities, looking for possible mates.
	MILA 2.0 - Debra Driza (2013) After the sudden death of her father, Mila’s at a new school, trying to fit in and falling for the mysterious. When she is involved in a car accident, she discovers she is not human and then learns that her life is a fiction and she cannot even rely on her emotions to tell her who she is. As she fights to find out who she really is and to protect her 'mom', she finds out there is much more to her life.
	You Shouldn't Call Me Mommy - Susan Tsui (2012) Orphaned as a little boy, Jay was raised by an artificial parent to become an upstanding member of society. Jay's older brother Ian still remembers their real parents and has never understood Jay's connection to his nanny-bot. As Ian and Jay try to understand each other and themselves they explore the nature of attachment and family loyalties.
	Unwholly - Neal Shusterman (2012) In the second book in the Unwind "Dystology", the teenage escapees continue to fight against the system that would 'unwind' them. A new character, Cam, is introduced: he is a 'rewound' made entirely out of parts from one hundred other 'unwinds', and struggles to find a true identity and meaning, and a place in society.
	Feedback - Robinson Wells (2012) The second book in the Variant series sees the teenage Benson Fisher, who thought that a scholarship to Maxfield Academy would be the ticket out of his dead-end life, discovers the school's real secret. He escapes, only to find a town in which he finds all the pupils who he thought had died, and learns that the academy's plans may be impossible to foil.
	Fractured - Teri Terry (2013) This is the sequel to Slated, in which Kyla's memory was erased and her personality wiped blank. However, she begins to remember things that she shouldn't as she encounters actions and people from her past. Finding out more about who she was confounds the question of who she is and what decisions she must make about her future.
	i2 - James Bannon (2011) While creating a new procedure by which memories are uploaded, stored and transferred to a new body, the inventor is diagnosed with terminal cancer. He use the procedure on himself, preparing to begin life again. However, instead of being born to the woman he loves, he is born into the family of his rival: a man who has stolen his company and his family. As he reconciles his intellect being trapped within the form of a helpless child he embarks on rebuilding his life.
	Scarlet - Marissa Meyer (2013) The sequel to Cinder, in which Scarlet turns to Wolf, a street fighter, when her grandmother goes missing. At the same time, Cinder becomes the Commonwealth's most wanted fugitive as she breaks out of prison to escape from Queen Levana. The stories collide as Cinder's true identity is discovered and she becomes a greater threat to Levana.