Library Notes By Erika Kosin
The Dystopian Novel for Teens

Many people dream of living in a perfect world. A place where everyone is equal and there are no worries, but in the attempt to create that perfect world, the created society usually ends up as a dystopian one. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a Dystopia as an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives. The Dystopian novel is usually set in a future society that is repressed and tightly controlled by some governmental entity, but many times the people living their do not know any differently.

With today’s political climate and the popularity of book The Hunger Games, many teens have found a new genre of fiction to cling to. While The Hunger Games has brought this genre to the front of mainstream literature there are many books, some classic such as Fahrenheit 451 (1953), that have broached this idea of a controlled society that “thinks” they are an enlightened, utopian existence. Some dystopian novels that can be found at the Rowan Public Library for Teens include:

The Giver by Lois Lowry – Imagine a society where everyone is the same. There is no color, no love, no choices and no knowledge. Jonas lives in a world just like this and everyone is happy, but on his twelfth birthday he learns that he will be the receiver of memories, the person who knows what life was like before the sameness. As he learns about what life could be, he is faced with the dilemma of leaving home to live a full life or staying and keeping those around him in the dark and happy.

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld – What if at the age of 16 everyone in society underwent plastic surgery and became perfect versions of themselves. If all choices, views and beliefs were erased making everyone pleasant and compliant. Set 300 years into the future, Tally Youngblood is about to become a “pretty” when she follows her friend Shay to the smoke, a village of “uglies” who refuse to undergo the transformation. As she learns more about the people of the smoke and the world of the pretties, will Tally decide to stay true to herself or will she go to the city to become a Pretty after all.

Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix – Twelve year old Luke Garner is the illegal third child in his family and has to stay inside because of a new housing development for government officials being built behind his home. He lives in a future America where droughts have caused a food shortage causing the government to create a strict population law that limits families to two children. If a “Shadow Child” is found, the population police will either kill or imprison the child, therefore forcing these children to either live in the shadows or take on new identities. With government officials moving in, could there really be other shadow children in the new homes?

Matched by Ally Condie – Cassia Reyes has been looking forward to her Matching Ceremony for a long time. When she finds out the Society has chosen her best friend Xander to be her perfect mate, she is both happy and surprised since your mate is usually from a different city and never someone you know. When Cassia receives her microchip with the information about her match on it, a boy named Ky quickly flashes on the screen before Xander, making Cassia question the validity of the Matching process. Could there actually be more than one perfect match out there for each person? Could the society have made a mistake and picked the wrong person for her? As she questions the matching process, she discovers that her world is not as perfect as it seems.