This one takes the cake, please take some time for a laugh and click on this link to an amazingly ridiculous book written by none other than Tyra Banks, unsurprisingly called Modelland.
From the blurb:
"No one gets in without being asked. And with her untamable hair, large forehead, and gawky body, Tookie De La Crème isn’t expecting an invitation. Modelland—the exclusive, mysterious place on top of the mountain—never dares to make an appearance in her dreams."
I mean, the main character's name - Tookie De La Creme - should give you an idea of how ridiculous it is.
You might enjoy Motel of the Mysteries.
>It is the year 4022; all of the ancient country of Usa has been buried under many feet of detritus from a catastrophe that occurred back in 1985. Imagine, then, the excitement that Howard Carson, an amateur archeologist at best, experienced when in crossing the perimeter of an abandoned excavation site he felt the ground give way beneath him and found himself at the bottom of a shaft, which, judging from the DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging from an archaic doorknob, was clearly the entrance to a still-sealed burial chamber. Carson's incredible discoveries, including the remains of two bodies, one of then on a ceremonial bed facing an altar that appeared to be a means of communicating with the Gods and the other lying in a porcelain sarcophagus in the Inner Chamber, permitted him to piece together the whole fabric of that extraordinary civilization.
>Retroactive abortions should be a option for all of these people.
Neal Shusterman wrote a dystopian fiction book about that exact thing. It's called "Unwind" and it will freak you the hell out.
> "Just say it had some kind of ritual function."
Motel of the Mysteries is a really fun book kinda lampooning this.
Future archaeologists excavate a modern-day motel (well, a late-70s motel, given when this was written), and completely misinterpret almost everything about the place.
Makes you think about what we're getting completely wrong about the things we're finding from our ancestors.
Ever read Motel of the Mysteries? It the account of archaeologists in 4022 digging up a 1970s motel, and their “interpretations” of the objects they found (like a toilet seat being a shamanistic headdress worn during a ceremony, there the wearer would chat “Sanitized for your protection!”, and other such nonsense).
It fits exactly with what you’re saying here, and is a humorous look at the assumptions we make about the past, and the people who lived in it.
Go reserve <em>Motel of the Mysteries</em> by David Macaulay from your local library. It's a tongue-in-cheek picture book about this very premise, it's a fast read, and it's really quite good. (4.5 stars on Amazon.)
I read it right in the middle of the "awkward teen" stage. And a book about how your natural beauty is a gift your ancestors gave you, conventional beauty is overrated as all kinds of beauty exists and is equally amazing, the draw, safety (and danger) of conformity vs the pressure, burden (and gift) of individuality, ect was exactly what I needed to give me confidence in being myself.
Also it's just a great story.
You may like "Motel of the Mysteries" by David Macaulay. (http://www.amazon.com/Motel-Mysteries-David-Macaulay/dp/0395284252) I haven't read it in a long time but the general premise is that a catastrophe occurs in the 80s burying the world and a few thousand years later archaeologists discover a preserved hotel (or something) and try to figure out what everything is and what it's used for.
The Unwind series
https://www.amazon.com/Unwind-Dystology-Neal-Shusterman/dp/1416912053
> After America’s Second Civil War, the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life armies came to an agreement. According to their Bill of Life, human life may not be terminated from the moment of conception until the age of thirteen. But between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, the child may be gotten rid of by their parent through a process called “unwinding.”
> By repurposing a teen’s organs and other body parts in living recipients, the unwound child’s life doesn’t technically end. According to society’s leaders, unwinding leads to a healthier and safer community, as troublesome and unwanted teens are used for the greater good.
The Uglies series might interest you. It’s not the same, but there is some shared dystopian themes https://www.amazon.com/Uglies-Scott-Westerfeld/dp/1442419814/ref=nodl_?dplnkId=18d7b1b6-21ce-4141-83c7-0a8ed42d5694
There is a satirical book called the Motel of the Mysteries that is written from the perspective of some future archaeologist who is excavating a cheap motel that was buried like the ruins of Pompeii. They try to assign some kind of deep significance to nearly everything they find. My favorite illustration is of a toilet seat that they thought was religious headgear of some kind.
Was this written about in Motel of the Mtsteries? Hm…
I’d suggest Feed by Matthew Tobin Anderson. I haven’t read it yet tbh, but I heard that it’s got a similar vibe to Orwell’s books, and that it’s great.
Oh no! Thanks for letting me know! I was trying one of those universal book links. I just copy pasted the same link back in there and it seems to be working now. I just commented an excerpt from the first chapter if you're interested. Also here's a link to the book that might work better.
Amazon.ca link
After a traumatic betrayal, two lifelong friends are torn apart.
Drew and Calvin grew up together in the Futuristic city of Chreos. A debt-fueled dystopia where the rich own the poor. As orphans they relied on each other to survive, but as Drew falls deeper into drug addiction things change between them.
When Drew's shady corporate employer asks him to blow up the factory that Calvin works in, he has no choice but to go through with it. Unknowingly setting off a chain of events that will force Calvin and him to work together to change the lives of every citizen in Chreos.
I just published my first novel and it's free until January 10th! It's been a long struggle but I finally made it. It's called Lapse and it's a Science fiction novel about two friends lost in a dystopian world. Check it out!
God I sure do love the refreshing taste of Coke^tm if we all could come together and drink Coke^tm we might actually have a chance at world peace. Did I mention that Come^tm tastes great and is very refreshing.
[God I sure do love the refreshing taste of Coke^tm if we all could come together and drink Coke^tm we might actually have a chance at world peace. Did I mention that Come^tm tastes great and is very refreshing.
Give this one a shot: https://www.amazon.com/Steelheart-Reckoners-Book-Brandon-Sanderson-ebook/dp/B00ARHAAZ6
Doesn't have to be on Amazon, but Steelheart is a super easy and fun read.
I get so excited seeing the prices drop. One I had a backpack on my list for $30 and it dropped 50% that was a great deal :)
I would love The Hunger Games #1 (on my Books and Under $15 lists) because I want a complete set of the trilogy and someone borrowed the first book from me and never returned it lol.
Thank you for the contest!
That's exactly the plot of Motel of the Mysteries. Archaeologists in the distant future find a couple buried in a motel room and assume every object is ritualistic rather than common and for everyday use.
This makes me think of this book I read years ago. I think it was called Feed? They had these implants that would show advertising. Well one of the characters would visit random stores and do super random things to throw off the targeted advertising. When the implant started going wrong, the company that made the implant wouldn't fix the implant because the ad profile was not able to profit. Or something like that.
^(because I know I hate it when people don't post a link to the deals they post)
I went to go buy it-but I already bought it back it 2016 it was on sale for $1.99 then
While it's more comic satire than unsettling dystopia, every theme you are asking about is right here in M.T. Anderson's Feed. I teach this to freshmen in my English class.
If you'd rather get that same creepy vibe that you do with Black Mirror episodes, I would instead suggest anything by Philip K. Dick. Most will probably recommend Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, but my personal favorite is The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.
People here often complain about how stuff posted on /r/futurology almost never becomes reality. Well, rejoice! It seems the exact kind of thing Cory Doctorow predicted in his anti-surveillance book Little Brother from eight years ago has now become reality.
A paragraph from a summary of the book:
> The government has control over people in the form of surveillance which then exploits their privacy. The gait recognition system from the novel capture the privacy of individual on a visual level. This system recognizes your walking stance and corresponds your stance to one on the database.
https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Little-Brother-by-Cory-Doctorow-PKNUVRATC
If I remember right from the book, the system could also be easily abused, as people could just start "walking funny" to fool it.
YA means young adult - still a pretty vibrant field - much more so than when i was reading susan cooper and lloyd alexander and david eddings growing up.
Before everyone started ripping of the hunger games with their teenage utopias - Scott Westerfield wrote Uglies. It was a trilogy that sort of seemed tied up, but then a few years after the end he wrote something called extra, and i don't want to spoil it, but I realized recently how the idea of how society worked in that book was (sadly) a lot how it works today
Maybe something on here? https://sites.google.com/site/youthlitmatters/index/booklists/dystopian
The timeline doesn't jive, but your description made me think of The Reckoners series by Brandon Sanderson, but HG was published in 2008 and Steelheart was published 2013. Steelheart (Reckoners Book 1) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ARHAAZ6/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_iU9sBbDJRT8WH
I’ve been teaching Feed to high schoolers for a few years now. It’s a dystopian novel taking place in the future in which all middle- and upper-class Americans are plugged into “the Feed” in which all advertisement, education, socializing, parenting, etc. must channel through its medium. The human race is gradually dumbed-down to the common denominator, and the environment begins to crumble beneath corporations desperate for resources. It’s marketed for YA, but there’s much more that lies beneath the surface. Every year I discover more complexities that Anderson has woven into this novel! I hope it’s what you’re looking for.