Eight Reasons Why the World Is Not Ending...Via Dystopian Novels

The World is Not Ending!..At least not according to dystopian novels.

Here at the Dystopian Divas blog we enjoyed Huffington Post’s list of reasons the world wouldn’t end today. Instead of just linking that to you guys, we decided to do something a little more, and how else would we do it without the help of some of our favorite dystopian novels? We present to you “Eight Reasons the World Won’t End Today (And Why You Still Have to Take Your Finals).”

REASON ONE: No Perma-Tats

In The Bar Code Tattoo we see a world that starts to be ripped apart when one girl refuses to get her identification bar code tattooed on herself. I don’t blame her, what with the questionable content of tattoo ink! This book tells us that the world is not ending because we are not forced to have bar code tattoos. We are forced to give our fingerprint sometimes…and my school seems to want my social security number a lot…and I’ve already memorized my new ID for UCSC…but no, it’s the bar CODE that’s important! As of yet, we have no demand for permanent identification tattoos. (Although something could be said about those microchips they put in animals.)

REASON TWO: All the Colors of the Wind

Oh Giver, where would I be without you? I would not be as avid a reader and I certainly would not have as huge a love for dystopian literature if I didn't know you. I also would not have had to write that high school senior year term paper. Another thing to thank The Giver for: it has told me that the world is not going to end. In The Giver, the world is black and white; there is very little emotion or anything that would be over-stimulating. Our current world, however, is far from under-stimulating. Between iPods and cellphones we are always amused; among Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and Myspace we are always connected. TVs are bigger and now in 3D. (And just in time for True Blood, mmm, this is gonna be a great season!) In conclusion, the world’s not ending because we’re still in Technicolor.

 REASON THREE: We Didn’t Start the Fire

Did anyone get out of school without reading this book? (Or watching the movie, like I did? Come on, give me a break, in my high school years we had dialup Internet. Do you know how long it took to even log on to Myspace? Who had time to read?) For you “Of course I read the book” snobs, the movie is just as good. We all know what it’s about: every bibliophile’s worst nightmare. Critical thinking is bad in this society (and after I get my grades for my critical thinking class I might agree with them), and because they burn books. Now, some very close-minded people have tried to get book-burning to catch on. We’ve seen Sarah Ockler’s Twenty Boy Summer and Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak get challenged, and we’ve all seen Harry Potter banned and even burned in some radical cases. But in the words of Amy Winehouse we readers and critical thinkers all said, “No, no, no.”

REASON FOUR: Love Still Makes the World Go Round

Now, it’s not just older books that are helping us here at Dystopian Divas determine that it’s worth it to make our beds and pay our bills today; it’s the newer books, too! If you watch the news or the TV show House, you know that as a society we love to get scared about diseases. We love to hate them,  love to obsess over them. I mean, Bath and Body Works probably stays open because of their HandiBac products. I know I have an entire box of them (I like options when it comes to germ killing). In Delirium, love is a disease. In our world, we haven’t gotten there yet. H1N1, bird flu, regular flu, chicken pox, measles, mumps, rubella, botulism…all real diseases. Love, not so much. Now, because the world isn’t ending you have the time for this: go read BlondieC’s review of this book (link below) and then read Delirium, because it’s amazing and beautiful.

REASON FIVE: Our Bodies, Ourselves

Here we have a two for one kind of a deal. Not exactly as exciting as Payless’s BOGO, but we’re a tiny little book blog. What do you want from us? So anyway, in The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and XVI by Julia Karr, a woman’s right to her body and her ability to consent are seriously taken into question, and in some cases, thrown right out the window. Even though some lawmakers are trying very hard to pass laws about women’s uteruses we still have the right to make our own decisions about our bodies.  End point? World not ending.

REASON SIX: Life Isn’t a Reality Show…Yet

Once again, we have another book that we were all supposed to read in class. I haven’t actually seen the movie, but I remember enjoying the Wikipedia page when I was writing the essay for it. (Wink.) What I took away from this novel is that the society was always being watched by someone referred to as Big Brother. If you ask me, it sounds like a reality show rip-off. Now, we know the world isn’t ending because our every moment isn’t logged in, although that sounds an awful lot like Foursquare. Ads aren’t tailored to us, although I feel like they seem to know where I shop online. Amazon also does such a good job of recommending books to me. Well, no matter, I have my Facebook set to private no one can get into it that I don’t want, I’m sure...

REASON SEVEN: Abandon Ship?!

Ship Breaker is about a society that finds oil inside abandoned ships. The oil is used to trade for money and other goods. This book shows that the world isn’t ending because a world that’s on the verge of destruction would be desperate for oil…. No comment.

REASON EIGHT: Katniss, DUH

Last, but certainly not least, and probably the most important reason here at Dystopian Divas, we know the world isn’t ending because we haven’t seen the cave scene between Katniss and Peeta. Making us leave this earth before The Hunger Games movie comes out isn’t funny. It’s just sick and cruel!

 What’s your evidence that the world isn’t ending? Share your proof down in the comments below!

~Guest Diva Samantha, with 'reason' titles by Diva Schuyler 

Catch Guest Diva Samantha on Twitter: @writerlysam

Diva Schuyler's Twitter: @ReadersInk

See Guest Diva BlondiieC's review of Delirium!

http://dystopiandivas.blogspot.com/2011/05/divergent-review-guest-diva-blondiiec.html