Young Adult Dystopian Fiction is a very popular genre today. As the Twilight series gave way to the "Young Adult Paranormal Romance" section in the bookstore, YA Dystopian Fiction is a subgenre that has become a full-fledged genre of its own. The Hunger Games, the most famous contemporary YA Dystopian trilogy, has made dystopias a popular setting for love triangles, uprisings and discovering horrible truths about human nature, perfection and power. Of course, before The Hunger Games there were many dystopias in fiction: the worlds of 1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451. These were all well respected novels that depicted chilling predictions of our possible future. Since the publishing of these novels, and others like them, there was a large gap in any new Dystopian novels until The Hunger Games.
The Hunger Games took the formula of Dystopian novels before it and added something new: a female protagonist. Katniss Everdeen is a new character in the genre: someone who uses the skills she has to fights back even though she and her family are victims of the world they live in. In previous Dystopian novels the protagonists are frequently higher-class, more educated or more curious than other people in their community. They possess a different quality, something that sets them apart. This is often a quest for knowledge about the truths of their world.
Katniss' quality that sets her apart is purely her survival instinct. She knows how to survive against the worst odds. Katniss can hunt, gather, trade and provide for her family. She is not interested in the corrupt government of the Capitol or the propaganda and information required to fight back. She wants something simple: a place where she can live without fear of the hunger games. A place where children are not forced to compete in a death match.
Katniss is very much a character who is defined by her poverty and few opportunities. She became a hunter out of necessity. She is desperate, skilled, ruthless and impulsive. She is not good at handling emotions, even when she is forced to create a fake romance with her fellow "tribute" in the hunger games from District 12, Peeta Mellark. Katniss has many skills, but she feels out of her depth throughout the hunger games competition and later when fighting the Capitol. She is strong and most importantly she is human.
The Hunger Games has brought us a new collection of young, vulnerable, conflicted protagonists who try their best to rail against the imperfect worlds they live in, sometimes succeeding and other times not.
I chose to focus on YA Dystopian novels with characters like these. There are so many overlooked Dystopian novels that really deserve to be read by a wider audience. I will attempt to tackle that by bringing attention to these books.
