“I know there is no profile for the dystopian reader. Dystopian readers are young, old, male, female, quiet, social, athletic, artistic, realists, dreamers… Dystopian authors are skilled artists who appeal to a wide range of readers. Young and old alike have strong feelings for these novels (Dystopian Novels).”
The Notoriety and Limitations
Why are dystopias so popular today for YA? I think the answer starts with Lev Grossman’s thought about forgetting what it is like to be a teenager “When you're that age, everything feels like the end of the world: every test and snub and class and audition and prom (Grossman).” Author Moira Young (Blood Red Road) goes further to create a theory that YA dystopias “mirror a teenager's life; at school, at home, with their peers and in the wider world (Young). These two statements, I believe, hit the bull’s-eye about why a teenager would like to read a dystopian novel; they can project themselves into the characters and the story. This applies, too, to an older audience, but maybe extends to remind them of what it was like to be that young, that growth from innocence and naïve to mature and more aware.
At the same time of appealing to a reader’s lives on a personal level, YA dystopias reach out to readers with “character-focused stories with fast, exciting plots,” Beth Revis, author of the YA dystopian Across the Universe, says. “…when the world ends, we don't care so much about the how of the end as we do about the who: who survived, and how, and why. Dystopian literature has a natural focus on the characters and their survival, and what makes them continue in a world so bleak (Normile). Through personal reading of YA dystopias, I find this to be true. It creates excitement for the reader to know the different types of characters who lived through a virus killing 99.996 percent of the population and living in fear of the engineered demihumans humans created to help when a war with China, as what occurs in Partials by Dan Wells or to see if they could live in a world where love is a disease and so there is a procedure to be rid of it as Delirium by Lauren Oliver explores. The different plotlines of dystopias—because there are an endless amount of ideas to explore about the future and what could go wrong— gives readers many issues to think about where our world is heading or could head. The unknown is an exciting place to look into, and YA dystopias open up this world to its readers to look at and explore.
At the same time of appealing to a reader’s lives on a personal level, YA dystopias reach out to readers with “character-focused stories with fast, exciting plots,” Beth Revis, author of the YA dystopian Across the Universe, says. “…when the world ends, we don't care so much about the how of the end as we do about the who: who survived, and how, and why. Dystopian literature has a natural focus on the characters and their survival, and what makes them continue in a world so bleak (Normile). Through personal reading of YA dystopias, I find this to be true. It creates excitement for the reader to know the different types of characters who lived through a virus killing 99.996 percent of the population and living in fear of the engineered demihumans humans created to help when a war with China, as what occurs in Partials by Dan Wells or to see if they could live in a world where love is a disease and so there is a procedure to be rid of it as Delirium by Lauren Oliver explores. The different plotlines of dystopias—because there are an endless amount of ideas to explore about the future and what could go wrong— gives readers many issues to think about where our world is heading or could head. The unknown is an exciting place to look into, and YA dystopias open up this world to its readers to look at and explore.
The Formation of a Good Story
What goes into the making of a dystopian? April Spisak says that there are four elements that occur in a YA dystopian novel that are constant, though not all do not consist of all of these elements; “a setting so vividly and clearly described that it becomes almost a character in itself…individuals or forces in charge who have a legitimate reason for being as they are…protagonists who are shaped by their environment and situations…and a conclusion that reflects the almost always dire circumstances (Spisak).” Spisak gives readers and nonreaders a good image about how the structure of a dystopian can work—not all do as she points out. There are so many different elements—setting, plot, characters, point of view, etc. — that with them executed well dystopians can offer its readers “space for asking big-scale life questions along with plenty of adventure” and give them the “danger to keep things exciting” as well as reading (Spisak).
Here is a youtube video from Sam Cushion Music. He goes into many of the issues and topics I talk about throughout this website, as well as what I don't talk about but found in my research, and gives more examples of YA dystopians in his five minute talk.