Parable of the Sower

"Oh, no," I thought at first. "Not another teenage dystopia novel." But this one was written in 1999, is set in 2025, and is far more harrowing than anything written by Suzanne Collins or Andrea Höst - it's too entirely plausible, too entirely reminiscent of newspaper articles we've seen and read all too often recently. The total breakdown of society caused not by war or zombie apocalypse, but by climatic changes influencing food prices, the global economy, the disparity between rich and poor (or even poor and middle-class), the siren song of escape from all these horrors through drug use. It's a tremendously vivid depiction of a world I don't even want to imagine. (but may not have a choice.)

I found the religious aspects to be perhaps the weakest elements of the novel. It's quite easy to imagine a bright and thoughtful teenager questioning the belief structures to which she's been exposed all her life, but I don't really believe she was able to convince her companions of the efficacy of her new world order - but she had tremendous focus, inborn leadership skills, and the ability to unify her companions to work towards tangible goals.