Technology can be very beneficial to life but imagine having a computer implanted inside your head. Microchips, brain implants, and gene hacking are a few forms of biotechnology that are explored in these books and serve as exciting yet cautionary tales. Curated by Samantha Matherne.
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Feed by M T Anderson
We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.
So says Titus, whose ability to read, write, and even think for himself has been almost completely obliterated by his feed, a transmitter implanted directly into his brain. Feeds are a crucial part of life for Titus and his friends. After all, how else would they know where to party on the moon, how to get bargains at Weatherbee & Crotch, or how to accessorize the mysterious lesions everyone s been getting? But then Titus meets Violet, a girl who cares about what’s happening to the world and challenges everything Titus and his friends hold dear. A girl who decides to fight the feed.
Following in the footsteps of Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, and Kurt Vonnegut, M. T. Anderson has created a not-so-brave new world and a smart, savage satire about the nature of consumerism and what it means to be a teenager in America.
iBoy by Kevin Brooks
What can he do with his new powers — and what are they doing to him?
Before the attack, Tom Harvey was just an average teen. But a head-on collision with high technology has turned him into an actualized App. Fragments of a shattered iPhone are embedded in his brain. And they’re having an extraordinary effect on his every thought.
Because now Tom knows, sees, and can do more than any normal boy ever could. But with his new powers comes a choice: To avenge Lucy, the girl he loves, will he hunt down the vicious gangsters who hurt her? Will he take the law into his own electric hands and exterminate them from the South London housing projects where, by fear and violence, they rule?
Not even his mental search engine can predict the shocking outcome of iBoy’s actions.
A Wi-Fi thriller by YA master Kevin Brooks.
The Sordid Selection by Jerri Chisholm
A 2024 Independent Press Award Distinguished Favorite for Young Adult Fiction. Being told your ideal career and mate sounds perfect until you realize it’s not at all as it seems.
In the nation of Airo-Aurora, data-collecting microchips are implanted in each citizen’s brain to ensure that everyone is slotted into their ideal career and wedded to their ideal mate. Alex Egelton always envisioned a quiet and easy life with a job she’s prepared for and a husband she already knows. Her life is capsized when she finds out she will serve as a handmaid to her future husband—the palace viscount. Alex is immediately thrust into a frenetic world of tiaras, backstabbing, and mayhem. Her presence at the palace is opposed by all, trustworthiness proves impossible to come by, and her enigmatic fiancé possesses a shady past. When peculiar scrolls begin to appear with cryptic clues that lead Alex from one palace secret to the next, she soon realizes they have far more tremendous ramifications than she thought. Will Alex be able to navigate the unwanted life thrust upon her while discovering the truth that will change everything? Your next addictive read awaits—dive in now and be part of a community that craves the truth!
The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
At his coming-of-age party, Matteo Alacrán asks El Patrón’s bodyguard, “How old am I? … I know I don’t have a birthday like humans, but I was born.”
“You were harvested,” Tam Lin reminds him. “You were grown in that poor cow for nine months and then you were cut out of her.”
To most people around him, Matt is not a boy, but a beast. But for El Patrón, lord of a country called Opium–a strip of poppy field lying between the U.S. and what was once called Mexico–Matt is a guarantee of eternal life. El Patrón loves Matt as he loves himself, for Matt is himself. They share identical DNA.
As Matt struggles to understand his existence, he is threatened by a sinister, grasping cast of characters, including El Patrón’s power-hungry family. He is surrounded by a dangerous army of bodyguards and by the mindless slaves of Opium, brain-deadened ‘eejits’ who toil in the poppy fields.
Escape from the Alacrán Estate is no guarantee of freedom because Matt is marked by his difference in ways he doesn’t even suspect. Around every turn in this vivid, futuristic adventure is a new, heart-stopping surprise.
Sanctuary by Paola Mendoza & Abby Sher
A near future dystopian where a young girl and her brother must escape a xenophobic government to find sanctuary.
It’s 2032, and in this near-future America, all citizens are chipped, and everyone is tracked–from buses to grocery stores. It’s almost impossible to survive as an undocumented immigrant, but that’s exactly what sixteen-year-old Vali is doing. She and her family have carved out a stable, happy life in small-town Vermont, but when Vali’s mother’s counterfeit chip starts malfunctioning and the Deportation Forces raid their town, they are forced to flee.
Now on the run, Vali and her family are desperately trying to make it to her tía Luna’s in California, a sanctuary state that is currently being walled off from the rest of the country. But when Vali’s mother is detained before their journey even really begins, Vali must carry on with her younger brother across the country to make it to safety before it’s too late.
Insignia by S J Kincaid
The earth is in the middle of WWIII in Insignia, the first entry in S. J. Kincaid’s fast-paced sci-fi adventure trilogy perfect for fans of Ender’s Game.
The planet’s natural resources are almost gone, and war is being fought to control the assets of the solar system. The enemy is winning. The salvation may be Tom Raines. Tom doesn’t seem like a hero. He’s a short fourteen-year-old with bad skin. But he has the virtual-reality gaming skills that make him a phenom behind the controls of the battle drones.
As a new member of the Intrasolar Forces, Tom’s life completely changes. Suddenly, he’s someone important. He has new opportunities, friends, and a shot at having a girlfriend. But there’s a price to pay. . .
This Mortal Coil by Emily Suvada
When a lone soldier, Cole, arrives with news of Lachlan Agatta’s death, all hope seems lost for Catarina. Her father was the world’s leading geneticist, and humanity’s best hope of beating a devastating virus. Then, hidden beneath Cole’s gene hacked enhancements she finds a message of hope: Lachlan created a vaccine.
Only she can find and decrypt it, if she can unravel the clues he left for her. The closer she gets, the more she finds herself at risk from Cartaxus, a shadowy organization with a stranglehold on the world’s genetic tech. But it’s too late to turn back.
There are three billion lives at stake, two people who can save them, and one final secret that Cat must unlock. A secret that will change everything.
Slated by Teri Terry
A riveting psychological thriller
Kyla has been Slated – her memory erased; her personality wiped blank. This is the government’s way of dealing with teen terrorists: give them a fresh start as a new person. They teach Kyla how to walk and talk again, give her a new identity and a new family, and tell her to be grateful for this second chance.
It’s also her last chance, and to ensure that she plays by their rules, Kyla is fitted with a Levo, a bracelet that monitors her mood and will stun – or even kill – her if her levels of anger or violence rise too high.
As she adjusts to her new life, Kyla can see she is different from the other Slateds. She asks too many questions and is plagued by nightmares that feel like memories – even though she shouldn’t have memories. Who is she, really? Has her Slating gone wrong? And if only criminals are Slated, why are innocent people disappearing? Torn between the need to understand more and her instinct for self-preservation, Kyla knows a dangerous game is being played with her life, and she’s determined not to let anyone see her make the wrong move…
Debut author Teri Terry has written a brilliantly original, thought-provoking novel about an uncomfortably plausible future.
Bluescreen by Dan Wells
Los Angeles in 2050 is a city of open doors, if you have the right connections. One of those connections is a djinni—a smart device implanted right in a person’s head. In a world where virtually everyone is online twenty-four hours a day, this connection is like oxygen—and a world like that presents plenty of opportunities for someone who knows how to manipulate it.
Marisa Carneseca is one of those people. She might spend her days in Mirador, the small, vibrant LA neighborhood where her family owns a restaurant, but she lives on the net—going to school, playing games, hanging out, or doing things of more questionable legality with her friends Sahara and Anja. And it’s Anja who first gets her hands on Bluescreen—a virtual drug that plugs right into a person’s djinni and delivers a massive, non-chemical, completely safe high. But in this city, when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is, and Mari and her friends soon find themselves in the middle of a conspiracy that is much bigger than they ever suspected.
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