Welcome to the Blob! I’m Kristen, and I’m the first of our little group of freshly-minted Denver Publishing Institute grads to share my thoughts with all you beautiful book-lovers. This has been a summer full of glorious reading time for me, and I’m excited to share some of the gems I’ve come across! I’m less excited by my somewhat breezy decision to be the first of our group to do a full-length post. Sigh…it seemed like such a good idea at the time. I’ll do my best not to disappoint.
Though I’m a big fan of a many different genres, my favorite, as I mentioned in my bio, is young adult literature. I love this fad-driven genre for many reasons–the one that sticks out right now is the fact that my life’s motto is eerily similar to Peter Pan’s. Seriously, though, one of the main things that keeps me coming back to YA is its variety; this single genre comprises wonderful things like historical fiction, sci-fi, fantasy, contemporary drama, and the currently all-consuming paranormal romance subgenre. But the one that I’m concerning myself with today is the most recent YA craze: dystopian fiction.
As far as I can tell, the beginning of the rise in YA dystopian fiction can be largely traced back to The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, the compelling, no-holds-barred series about fights to the death, some very intrepid teenagers, and a horribly corrupt and despotic government. I won’t say too much about the books, since I have a feeling that some of my fellow bloggers may be gunning to write about them, but I will say that the series has inspired an influx of new and upcoming dystopian novels–books that I’m hoping will quite literally give the vampire phenomenon a run for its money.
This subgenre is by no means unprecedented for YA–several of Lois Lowry’s books (I recently read and loved The Giver) and Scott Westerfield’s Uglies series come to mind, for instance. However, the recent attention the subgenre has gotten is pretty unheard-of. Publishers are churning out books like Wither by Lauren DeStefano and Divergent by Veronica Roth (both of which I aspire to read at some point), right on the heels of The Hunger Games, and you’d be hard-pressed to find many similar books that were published before 2009.
So, my question is–why? Why this sudden upswing in dark, hardcore dystopian novels? Is the hunger of today’s teens for grittier fare a positive trend or a negative one? We could always play the Teen Angst card, and I do think it wouldn’t be entirely irrelevant to do so. But I like to think it goes a bit deeper than that–maybe teens are starting to take more of an interest in the societies and governments around them. Maybe they’re beginning to realize that small actions–even their small actions–can eventually add up to huge consequences. Maybe they recognize these stories for the cautionary tales that most of them are. Maybe they’re aware that they are the ones who will determine whether or not the future will resemble the world of Katniss or Jonas or Tally. Then again, maybe they just like a good story. But whatever the cause, I think it’s an encouraging trend overall, one that hints at a group of teenagers that are more self- and societally-aware than their predecessors, and one that’s likely to cause teens to branch out and read great classics like 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, or A Canticle for Leibowitz. And in my opinion, that really couldn’t hurt.
But enough about what I think. What do YOU think? Why is YA dystopian fiction such a big deal? And where will it go next?
Kristen, this post is very insightful, and I would only like to add one point. I was particularly grabbed by the cautionary tales point you made, and I wonder myself: how much of this trend is older authors who write YA fiction feeling the need to warn the younger generations of such things as corruption, inequality, or Earth’s destruction? I believe it is wonderful that teens are so receptive to these issues and themes, and also that it goes far beyond teenage angst, but I have to wonder, also, why our older generations write these tales for them. Does that say something more about us and our perceptions of the world as it is, and also, who we think has the power to fix things? Is it out of our control already? Do we need a new younger generation to educate in hopes of “righting the ship” that is humanity?… or is it just both fun to read AND write?
That’s an excellent point, Nick! You’re right that it’s just as important to look at it from the author’s perspective as from the reader’s. I do have to wonder if the authors writing these stories feel the need to warn the next generation of the possibilities (read: dangers) of the directions that society is going now. Maybe they’re hoping that this group of future world leaders will pull back on the reins a bit and think about where things are actually going instead of charging blindly onward. Definitely something interesting to ponder!
I think it all boils down to the concept of vicarious living. I’ve studied YAL for some time now, and one of the major aspects that teens enjoy about YAL is that it allows them to try something new with little risk to themselves. After The Hunger Games, they know what it’s like to fight to the death. After Divergent, they know what it’s like to be the odd one out, and realize that it’s not necessarily a bad thing. And the list goes on. It seems that’s why people read a lot of books, though. I know that plays a major role in what I read, at least.
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