Young adult literature in the English-speaking world has had a huge rush of dystopian novels in the last few years, following the success of Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games series (2008-10). The trend went global at this year’s Bologna Book Fair, with Publisher’s Weekly mentioning dyslit seven times in its fair round up, and Bookseller declaring dystopia “the new paranormal.” That’s a heady claim to make in an industry still spinning from the 100-million-plus-selling Twilight phenomenon.
As the writer of the Uglies series, I’m sent a handful of these dyslit books every month to blurb—more all the time, it seems. Many are awesome, though a few show their authors’ lack of familiarity with dyslit 101; wheels are often reinvented and clichés deployed in an un-self-aware way. But I’m not here to bemoan knockoffs or fads. After all, if Hunger Games fans desperately need more dyslit books for their shelves, it’s capitalism’s job to provide them.
What I’d rather look at is how a sub-genre with the aesthetic parameters of dyslit could wind up as “the new paranormal.” How do grim, gritty, dark stories of oppression and chaos fill the same ecological niche as glamorous, glittering vampires with high-modern houses in the Pacific northwest? It’s easy to see what teenagers find attractive about being immortal, beautiful, and super-powered. But what’s so appealing, even obsession-worthy, about tales of dystopia?
