Dystopian Society discussion

It's summer - we are all busy. so....I chose the runner-ups in last month's poll for this month's books.

This one got a lot of votes and I've been wanting to read it.

Oh, I am so late with this! Larry, or my public library E-Zone, had me waiting for a lot of our books lately. This one I finally got in September and finished it early this month.

Did anyone else read this? I was confused by this - did I like it or not? I loved the world the author created, and it was fairly believable to me. I loved the way they lived in the walled neighborhood, clinging together against the harsh world and having each other's backs. But the whole "religion" thing, invented by a 17-year-old girl? I was not into that. It was weird, it wasn't very believable. It SOUNDED like a teen-aged girl read some comparative religion books and scraped up all the feel-good "love thy neighbor" stuff and left out the God stuff. Why any adult would follow her, I have no idea. I also don't like to read fantasy or paranormal stuff, and this whole "empathy" thing was too much for me. The novel didn't need that.

But I loved the writing and the character development. I loved the world...so I will give the second book, Parable of the Talents, a chance.