I’ve been in a reading slump for a year, and absolutely cannot find a decent dystopia or fantasy book. I’ve read all the booktok best sellers including Fourth Wing and ACOTAR and enjoyed them but I found them a bit too smutty (which isn’t my personal taste). I do like a bit of smut and romance but I need a sturdy plot. I’m not a great fan of anything Hunger Game esque (again just personal taste) but would be willing to try anything.
by Sensitive_Crazy_8172
3 Comments
NK Jemisin’s “Broken Earth Trilogy” is an award-winning dystopian fantasy, about a world where geology-mages are slaves of the state and apocalypses happen every few generations.
Margaret Atwood’s dystopias are notoriously ‘real’ feeling, because she bases them on things that happen IRL. “The Handmaids Tale” is a religious dystopia, “Oryx and Crake” is a corporate dystopia.
Octavia Butler likes to play with the idea of a ‘perfect society’ and point out what’s disturbing about it, almost all of her works are both utopian and dystopian. Makes for a fun narrative tension.
I second the Margaret Atwood recommendations! Oryx and Crake will draw you in right away and has no smut, but some interesting romance.
The Blood Red Road trilogy has a really sexy romance, but there isn’t any overt smut. Pretty unique plot and writing style. It’s written with the vocabulary and grammar rules from the future it is set in.
The Scholomance series- A Deadly Education is first. I was hooked from the opening lines.