Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

“One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.”

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley reminds me of a more disturbing and extreme version of 1984. The 20^th Century novel is set in London in 2540 (in the book, known as 632 after Ford).  The world is stable; nobody ever suffers, the world is united, the people are happy and everyone is in a job that is satisfactory to them. However, this means controlling everything; the world has a stable population of 2 billion, children are ‘manufactured’ in labs, genetically modified to fit a caste and then educated – almost traumatized/terrorized – to fit into society. The lower castes (the majority of the population) are bred through a process in which one single egg produces up to 96 identical children. When Bernard and Lenina travel to the “Savage Reservation”, they are shocked at the difference between the two worlds. They end up encountering, John, a young man that was born from World State parents but born and raised in the Savage World. John is an outsider due to his appearance in the primitive village, and finds comfort in reading Shakespeare. Bernard decides to take John and his mother back to London. However, John finds the ‘civilized’ society appalling and is still feels as the outsider...

1984 by George Orwell

“Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as to be understood.” 

1984 by George Orwell is a science fiction story that attacks totalitarianism. The book is set in the superstate of Oceania, in the province called Airstrip One. Everything and everyone from the party is monitored all the time by Big Brother, the supreme leader. Anyone who shows any sign of rebelling against IngSoc (the government) is punished, tortured until they confess to all sorts of crimes and then killed. Winston, the protagonist, works in the Ministry of Truth. His jobs are to falsify records. Smith inwardly rebels and finds that there are others like him. However, the Party can see everything and so Winston is not as successful as he thinks and is ultimately betrayed by his co-worker in the end.

Should you read this book? Definitely! Not only is this book a classic and references to it all the time in media, pop culture and everyday life but it is surprisingly entertaining and easy to read. From the beginning, I understood everything and I was actually invested in the story, I say ‘actually’ because the classic novels are not always so accessible to modern teen readers and this was an exception. Although, I have to warn any future readers, that the ending is not a happy one and while this was necessary to prove Orwell’s point, I am never one to be satisfied with a sad ending.

George Orwell uses the novel to warn the readers of that time about communism and totalitarianism in general. George Orwell sets the story in 1984 - only 35 years after the publication date – so to warn the English public that this could easily happen to them if they didn’t ward off totalitarianism. The Cold War at that time had not escalated yet and so there were still some academic supporters. As Orwell put it, “Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written directly or indirectly against totalitarianism and for Democratic Socialism as I understand it." Orwell was against the communist up rise in Russia and Spain and so sought to warn the British and Americans of this. Personally, I agree with Ben Pimlott’s introduction (Penguin publication) which stated that this book was also an attack on the direction of the British Labour government, at that time, into state socialism. Orwell may have been a democratic socialist but I don’t think he was pleased with the direction the Labour government was heading in. Mostly, because the name of the government in 1984 was IngSoc, meaning English Socialism in Newspeak. This meant that England/Britain was still the power house of Oceania; it wasn’t another country such as a Russia who had taken over England and turned it communist. [NOTE: Going back now, I really think George Orwell wrote about Totalitarian Russia. As I am studying Russia in Stalin's period, I see more and more similarities about the past Russia and 1984 - it is really shocking. Things like the no persons, trials for people who used to be part of the party and even thought crime occurred in Russia.] 

Eve (the Eve Trilogy) by Anna Carey

“A relationship between two people can be judged by the list of things unspoken between them.”  - Eve

Eve by Anna Carey is the first in the Eve Trilogy. The story is set in 2032, in the New America after a plague (and its vaccine that was meant to help) killed most of the world's population. The U.S.A is now ruled by a King. Girls and boys are completely separated into schools. Eve, the protagonist, is graduating from school and hopes to become a great painter. One day before graduation one of her colleagues shares her plans and knowledge with Eve. It seems that the King nor the teachers are telling the truth. Everything she believed in is a lie. Eve escapes all of this and meets Caleb. They fall in love but with them being fugitives she must choose between safety and love. 

This book is AMAZING!! I don't really know exactly where this books achieves this success or how Anna Carey did it but I just found I was completely absorbed by the book and the characters. I read non stop and finished it in less than a day. I would burst out at random moments screaming for Eve or Caleb, I was nearly crying at the end when Caleb was leaving. This is seriously such a cute, sweet book for all the dreamers and thinkers out there.