American Terrorist

Written by: Tyler and Wendy Chin-Tanner and Andy MacDonald

First line: We're here. Everyone out.

Why you should read this book: Frighteningly prescient, relevant, and meaningful, this is modern and believable story of four ordinary American professionals--a lawyer, a schoolteacher, a scientist, and a journalist--who are branded as terrorists and outcasts for little more than wanting to speak truth to power. Owen is simply reporting on the stories that mainstream media outlets aren't interested in sharing when Hannah and Shannon, both troubled by the realization that the corporations they trusted have no honor and no concern for them, enter his life, and the three run to Michael for help. Realizing they can never clear their names or return to their old lives, they embark on a grass roots campaign of truth-telling and truth-revealing that have the power to create change in the only way that remains to them.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You think companies care about you. 

On a Clear Day

Written by: Walter Dean Myers

First line: "She just stopped singing."

Why you should read this book: Extrapolating from the world of today, Myers imagines a future in which corporations control every aspect of existence, smilingly introducing new products and services while the stratification between the haves and have-nots increases. Dahlia, an orphan math prodigy, is recruited by a group of young people who still feel like they can make a difference, and somehow, they are able to throw a monkey wrench into one high-stakes machination. Sort of grim, and following the new YA aesthetic of books about terrible futures in which an even more terrible future is inevitable, despite everything that the characters do to change the outcome.

Why you shouldn't read this book: To be honest, I didn't really understand big swaths of it, why people were doing what they were doing and how they came to their information and connections, even though the books explained it; the explanations just didn't make sense to me, and having one character state that she will turn facts into data and enter them into computer projections to predict outcomes didn't really mean much to me either. Too many characters, too much plot.