DYSTOPIAN YABEEN THEREDONE THATWILL IT HAPPEN AGAIN?
by Kitty Griffin
First of all,
just what is a Dytopian Book?
It’s the opposite
of a Utopian Book.
According to
Dictionary.com it’s
“a society characterized by human misery, as squalor,
oppression, disease, and overcrowding.”
Hmmm. Not sure I’m in complete agreement when we talk
about YA Dystopia because I consider Robert O’Brien’s novel (soon coming out as
a major motion picture with hunky hunk Chris Pine and gorgeous Margot
Robbie—who is way too old for the part. Sigh. Why???) Z for Zachariah a dystopian, but when it opens we don’t know what’s
become of the outside world, but things at the farm seem normal. It’s just that
mushroom shaped cloud in the far distance…
And Lois Lowry’s book, The Giver (again where Hollywood put someone 25 in a role meant for
someone much younger. Grump. Grump.) society is very calm, quiet, and no one is
in squalor. They don’t even realize they’re oppressed.
So I’m going to tweak this definition and make it for YA
Dystopian Book,
A story that takes place in an
unfamiliar future where people might be oppressed but they won’t know it until
the main character discovers it for them. Then the main character will be
igniting the spark that starts the revolution so society becomes free until it
becomes oppressed and the people don’t know until the main character discovers
it for them.
Let’s see…that fits for a number of books, albeit with a
touch of snark.
Maybe I’ve read too many YA Dystopian Books. Not all of
them stellar.
Because of the “Hunger Games” series this type of book
has become hugely popular. Just type in Dystopian YA into Amazon search and see how many hits you get.
Why would kids want to read about kids surviving in a
difficult future?
Well, with Hunger
Games the stakes couldn’t be much higher, right? Life or Death. Same with
the new book Red Rising.
When it’s Life or Death the main character is in peril
very quickly.
So then the reader must ask, why does the main character
want to live? Why did Katniss? Because she wanted to protect her mother and
sister. It was LOVE. It was FAMILY.
While there were a fantastic number of Dystopian YA
books right after Hunger Games,
things may slow down, but my guess is, not for long.
I think this is a genre that will continue to interest
teens.
Here is a small selection, no special order.
Z
for Zachariah by Robert O’Brien
A bit dated, but holds up. What if you lived with your
family in a remote valley, farming the land, living simply? What if one day you
stayed behind while they went into town to get supplies? What if they never
came back? What if the radio went out, the TV went out, and what’s that weird
mushroom cloud in the distance? What if you thought you were the last person
alive on Earth until…is that someone on the ridge far away?
The
House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer
In this future world there is a country called Opium, a
land of that produces the wonderful drug that makes pain go away. In this land
is a boy named Matt. Why is he so despised? Why do others treat him so
abysmally?
Because Matt isn’t quite human. He is, but he came out
of the belly of a cow. He was harvested, just like the opium from the poppy. He
was grown to help prevent pain. Because his parts are useful to the old man who
needs those parts, the drug lord, Matt’s original body.
Feed
by MT Anderson
What if you were bored? What if you could go to the moon
to party? Right. Like, let's go!
This is set in the future where every kid wants to be attached
to the FEED, to have the chip put right in the head to see the world
electronically…but what if your girlfriend doesn’t want the chip any more? What's a boy to do?
The
opening to this book is brilliant.
Mortal
Engines by Philip Reeves
What if your city was hungry and needed to eat? What if
your city was London and it was up on tractors and had to be on the move to
find smaller cities to survive?
Yeah. Social Darwinism taken all the way to this.
The fabric of the imagination stretched. The characters are memorable and the joy of imagining London as this living moving thing is fabulous.
Tanglewreck
by Jeanette Winterson
Reviews were very mixed for this book. I loved it.
Couldn’t put it down. (Some people were confused by the heavy physics, oh well.)
This book is another imagination stretcher. For what if
you lived in a world where twisters raged through the land, but these were time
twisters that brought things from other times and left them as well as taking
others away from their own time?
Delicious.
Red
Rising by Pierce Brown
(Listened to this one via Audible)
Talk about imagination stretched! The Earth is dead. Long live Mars!
Darrow is a Red. In a color coded society, being Red is, well, almost dead.
He’s a miner, giving his life so that Mars can be mined and tamed and turned
into a livable planet for dying Earthlings.
Only that’s all a lie.
And to prove it, Darrow will become Gold, take away the "L" and you have god, for he will be close to being god-like. That’s the ruling
class.
Warning: extremely violent. This one is not for sissies. These kids are at war to survive and it isn't pretty.
But, you'll just panic wondering what is going to happen to Darrow?
I can’t wait for book two. And that doesn't happen very often.
Now here is one that is quite popular, but I had a
serious problem with it. (Maybe the problem arose because, again, I listened to
it. Maybe it just wasn't a listening story)
Unwind
by Neal Shusterman
I liked the characters well enough.
But I couldn’t get past the stretch.
Here it is—that in the future the Anti-Choice and
Pro-Choice factions go to war. The result? That parents can return a child
between the age of 13-18 and that said child would be unwound. All their parts,
their organs, every bit of their being, will be donated to those who need them.
I know teens can be miserable creatures to live with,
but it’s also when they can amaze you. I can’t conceive of a world where this
would happen. Therefore, I couldn’t accept the premise.
But the book is hugely popular. I’m in the minority for
this one.
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