I told a college student taking my class that I loved YA books of any era “because Things Happen!” She said “Good to know. I’m the YA manager at a bookstore.”
The next day she passed my table in the school cafe and plopped a book on it without saying a word. That was Hunger Games, and after three of those, she did the same thing with The Knife of Never Letting Go.
Great world-building, where the wild west level of tech is combined with the fact that telepathy is widespread.
Which leads us to my favorite opening of a book:
The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don’t got nothing much to say. About anything.
“Need a poo, Todd.”
“Shut up, Manchee.”“Poo.”
“Poo, Todd.”
“I said shut it.”“Poo,” Manchee barks quietly to himself. “Poo, poo, poo.”
“Just have yer stupid poo and quit yapping about it.”
Don’t worry, a lot more happens. It’s the first of the “Chaos Walking” trilogy, and was made into a movie that was released during Covid and not marketed at all.
It had a great cast; Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley, with Mads Mikkelsen as the bad guy, and Nick Jonas as his son. But no one saw it… I just happened to see the name and rented it on Amazon.
Highly recommended.