Hi dear friends!

Today’s topic for Top 5 Tuesday hosted by Shanah @bionicbookworm was dystopian.

As I know that some of you argue about what is dystopian and what is not dystopian, I looked up for the definition and what you get is:

dys·to·pi·an
/disˈtōpēən/
 
adjective
1.
relating to or denoting an imagined state or society where there is great suffering or injustice.
“the dystopian future of a society bereft of reason”
 

And our friend Merriam-Webster adds:

Definition of dystopia

1 : an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives There’s almost a flavor of science fiction to the scenes Chilson describes, as though he were giving us a glimpse into a 21st-century dystopia of mad egoism and hurtling hulks of metal.— Adam Goodheart.
So basically, a dystopian book is about any story where the society has been dehumanized, is suffering deeply and sometimes can have some science fiction flavor. Often it can be compared with post apocalyptic worlds. I know for the die hard fans post apocalyptic is not dystopian per se but for the sake of this post I will commit treason and …assimilate!
I chose to give you the many different kind of boyfriends some of my favorite dystopian novels made me dream about!
In a dystopian world, you can go from monsters to princes or angels!
Let’s begin with  monsters!
First to come to mind are …zombies! And my favorite not so known is Bram from  Dearly Departed and Dearly Beloved by Lia Habel
Synopsis
Love conquers all, so they say. But can Cupid’s arrow pierce the hearts of the living and the dead – or rather, the undead? Can a proper young Victorian lady find true love in the arms of a dashing zombie?

The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria – a high-tech nation modeled on the manners, mores, and fashions of an antique era. A teenager in high society, Nora Dearly is far more interested in military history and her country’s political unrest than in tea parties and debutante balls. But after her beloved parents die, Nora is left at the mercy of her domineering aunt, a social-climbing spendthrift who has squandered the family fortune and now plans to marry her niece off for money. For Nora, no fate could be more horrible – until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses.

But fate is just getting started with Nora. Catapulted from her world of drawing-room civility, she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting “The Laz,” a fatal virus that raises the dead – and hell along with them. Hardly ideal circumstances. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and dead. But as is the case with the rest of his special undead unit, luck and modern science have enabled Bram to hold on to his mind, his manners, and his body parts. And when his bond of trust with Nora turns to tenderness, there’s no turning back. Eventually, they know, the disease will win, separating the star-crossed lovers forever. But until then, beating or not, their hearts will have what they desire.

In Dearly, Departed, romance meets walking-dead thriller, spawning a madly imaginative novel of rip-roaring adventure, spine-tingling suspense, and macabre comedy that forever redefines the concept of undying love.

Second kind of monster, who began my love story with Holly Black’s books: vampires! Gavriel from The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
Synopsis
Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown’s gates, you can never leave.

One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows how: by going straight to the wicked, opulent heart of Coldtown itself.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a wholly original story of rage and revenge, of guilt and horror, and of love and loathing from bestselling and acclaimed author Holly Black.

You can also have a more advanced race gifted with a very good eyesight like that of a falcon or … like Perry in Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi
Synopsis
Since she’d been on the outside, she’d survived an Aether storm, she’d had a knife held to her throat, and she’d seen men murdered.

This was worse.

Exiled from her home, the enclosed city of Reverie, Aria knows her chances of surviving in the outer wasteland–known as The Death Shop–are slim. If the cannibals don’t get her, the violent, electrified energy storms will. She’s been taught that the very air she breathes can kill her. Then Aria meets an Outsider named Perry. He’s wild–a savage–and her only hope of staying alive.

A hunter for his tribe in a merciless landscape, Perry views Aria as sheltered and fragile–everything he would expect from a Dweller. But he needs Aria’s help too; she alone holds the key to his redemption. Opposites in nearly every way, Aria and Perry must accept each other to survive. Their unlikely alliance forges a bond that will determine the fate of all who live under the never sky.

If you add an element of science fiction, you could either end up with …

Hot lifelikes or droids like Zeke (I call dibs!) Tall, black hair and blue blue eyes…good to eat!

Synopsis
On a floating junkyard beneath a radiation sky, a deadly secret lies buried in the scrap.

Eve isn’t looking for secrets—she’s too busy looking over her shoulder. The robot gladiator she’s just spent six months building has been reduced to a smoking wreck, and the only thing keeping her Grandpa from the grave was the fistful of credits she just lost to the bookies. To top it off, she’s discovered she can destroy electronics with the power of her mind, and the puritanical Brotherhood are building a coffin her size. If she’s ever had a worse day, Eve can’t remember it.

But when Eve discovers the ruins of an android boy named Ezekiel in the scrap pile she calls home, her entire world comes crashing down. With her best friend Lemon Fresh and her robotic conscience, Cricket, in tow, she and Ezekiel will trek across deserts of irradiated glass, infiltrate towering megacities and scour the graveyard of humanity’s greatest folly to save the ones Eve loves, and learn the dark secrets of her past.

Even if those secrets were better off staying buried.

Or hot stalker aliens like Evan in The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey (I am still not over THAT damn ending!) Why? Why? Whyyyyyyy?
Synopsis
After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one.

Now, it’s the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth’s last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie’s only hope for rescuing her brother-or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up.

And as far as the princes are concerned I’d go for Maxon any day! The Selection by Kiera Cass
Synopsis
For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to escape the life laid out for them since birth. To be swept up in a world of glittering gowns and priceless jewels. To live in a palace and compete for the heart of gorgeous Prince Maxon.

But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare. It means turning her back on her secret love with Aspen, who is a caste below her. Leaving her home to enter a fierce competition for a crown she doesn’t want. Living in a palace that is constantly threatened by violent rebel attacks.

Then America meets Prince Maxon. Gradually, she starts to question all the plans she’s made for herself—and realizes that the life she’s always dreamed of may not compare to a future she never imagined.

And my favorite: Raffe! Of course that would be a naughty badass angel! Duh! Angelfall by Susan Ee
Synopsis
It’s been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back.

Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel.

Raffe is a warrior who lies broken and wingless on the street. After eons of fighting his own battles, he finds himself being rescued from a desperate situation by a half-starved teenage girl.

Traveling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they have only each other to rely on for survival. Together, they journey toward the angels’ stronghold in San Francisco where she’ll risk everything to rescue her sister and he’ll put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again.

Now special mention to these books even if Peta Mellark is not my ideal boyfriend and even if I haven’t forgiven Veronica Roth for that ending either!

Now do we have some boyfriends in common? I am warning you: as an only kid I don’t like sharing my toys even less my boy toy 😀

Thanks for reading!

Sophie

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22 Comments

  1. It has been years since I read Angelfall, so I don’t remember Rafe that well. I haven’t even finished the series TBH. I need to reread the first two books one day.

  2. I finally ordered a copy of Coldest Girl, but I only paid for one lot of shipping so I won’t get it until The Queen of Nothing comes out (because I ordered signed copies ) Looking forward to reading all about Gavriel then!!

      1. There’s a bookstore called Odyssey Books that organizes signed copies with her. Postage is ridiculous but there’s basically no limit on the books, so a couple of us are all going in together and I’m getting nearly a full set of signed books.