With androids taking over tasks both menial and specialized, there isn’t anything available for newly minted high school graduates – certainly not college, and no career prospects. For Lisse and her friends, graduating from their government sponsored school is a time of morbid dread, because even though she and her classmates have graduated with honors and have surpassed all expectation in their final exams, they are surplus population. In the year 2154, overcrowding is the world’s biggest problem. Look at that Virtual Reality madness! The colors! LIGHTNING! It’s so bad…it’s good. Although I must say, I think I prefer the totally rad 1990s cover to the bland reissued version. Why did I read this book: This previously published early ’90s book has been coming up in talks with other dystopian-minded bibliophiles (including the wonderful author Megan Crewe who mentioned the book as one of her favorite YA dystopians in this month’s newsletter!), and when I learned that Simon & Schuster had recently republished the book, I knew I had to track it down and give it a shot. Netting more than 75,000 copies when it was originally published as Invitation to the Game in 1991, this title continues to be a favorite, and, with its eye-catching new package, will reach an eager new audience hungry for dystopian stories. Is it a dream, or a computer simulation? Each time they play the Game, the new world seems more and more real…. Then they receive an invitation to the Game-which transports them to a paradise. Now that school is over, Lisse and her friends are consigned to a bleak neighborhood for the permanently unemployed. It’s the future, and most jobs are done by machines. Publication Date: October 2010 (originally published February 1991) Genre: Dystopian, Science Fiction, Young Adult Title: The Game (previously published as Invitation to The Game)

The game book monica hughes