i would be so pissed if i was Suzanne Collins and the world just completely missed the point of my books. the THG books resemble the real world so so so much, it’s honestly ironic when i see people preach and root for Katniss and then call the people with the exact same goal as her “savages” or “t3rrorists”, or just straight up ignore the political messages and aspects of the trilogy. it’s the “underdogs” being pit against each other to forget who put them there in the first place, how do people not realize? it’s similar to why books like Divergent rose to popularity so quickly. not only because of the trend that THG set, but because of the lack of “politics”. it’s basically a drama-romance with the appeal and aesthetic of rebellion to up the stakes for the white main character with the personality and backbone of a sack of flour and her dark tall and handsome brooding bad boy love interest
When I read the books I cried a little because it described exactly my life without the child killing reality show. This is literally what a third world (or fascistic developing countries) country looks like.
Someone on instagram comments was arguing and they basically said that the capitol isn't israel, the capitol is palestine. I wanted to shoot myself in the face
fact of the matter is, young adults/teens aren't reading the YA genre like they used to. i've seen on booktok girls in middle school reading super dark, heavy disturbing dark romance" there was drama recently in the booktok sphere where an underage boy asked for book recs. he said his favorite book was the hunger games. he got so many responses from grown ass women telling him he was too "innocent" for reading those books and reccomending him things like "still beating" and that "adline book - all of which are even too dark and too disturbing for me at my big age of 30.
I’m 22 now, but when I was 12 I was reading the same dark stuff!! Except back then it was on wattpad, all these “dark romances” have the quality of wattpad books, most of them don’t seem to have more than one round of editing (if even THAT). Before you would need to have your book published through a real publishing company, now we have more indie writers which is great but the quality is starting to spread to big publisher books. I wish people would STOP asking for smut in every book? It’s very cringey and most of the time they have some out of pocket weird ways to describe the smut.
@@jazg3950 yeah like i was reading fanfic back in the day as a teen/pre-teen and some of it had dark elements, but i still think very young teens being exposed to some of these books isn't a good thing. there's one book where two people are forced to grape each other and they fall in love after. and that's being pushed on tiktok as a romance. i'm all for indie books and i do genuinely think booktok is a good thing. it's exposing people to reading whereas they might not have enjoyed it before. but it feels like things that are flat out abuse are being read by very young teens that might not have the mental maturity to recognize, no this isn't a romance to strive for. and yes!!! i once saw a booktubr say she wouldn't read anything if it didn't have smut. that shuts off so many good books. i get personal preference and all that but a book doesn't have to have smut to still be good. now we're hearing of authors being told by their publishers they have to include smut. so unless they publish through an indie publisher, christian publisher, or self publish, they're closed off from a lot of markets.
I’m 16, and when I went to the book store I found full on smut books, in the CHILDREN’S section, not young adult CHILDREN, things like the love hypothesis, ugly love, ice breaker. Kids are being conditioned to be desensitised to all of this
I suspect this might be a consequence of books like the Court of Thornes and Roses books being classified as 'YA' when they really shouldn't have been, but the characters were teens (or...young adults? I don't remember, but if they weren't teens then that just shows how older generations infantilized millennials to treat books about young adults as books for teens - and I know, "YA" means young adult but lbr YA basically means 'books for teens' not 'books for early 20-somethings) and the writing quality was 'YA' style. I know they eventually made a 'new adult' category for those but that never really stuck, from what I saw. And its fine for those books to exist but they should've been put on the shelves with the adult books. Also, Five Nights at Freddy's might be another reason. Back when my nieces were in first grade, I asked my brother what they were into, and he answered Five Nights at Freddy's. He didn't know what that was, but I, a terminally online person, did lol. Apparently their whole class loved it, and I can see why - the first few games didn't have an overt story unless you dug into it, it was just 'oh ho ho what if animatronics were evil and wanted to eat you!' and that is a pretty kid-friendly scare concept, but also even if you don't dig into the story to even realize there is a story in the first few games, the third game has a literal corpse that you can see inside the thing that's attacking you, so like...its a kid-friendly concept but is also really really dark. Which, I will say kids should be able to have kid-oriented horror, Goosebumps and A Series of Unfortunate Events and other things that ranged from spooky to scary were very popular when I was little, and its great. But Five Nights at Freddy's has also been a much harder gateway than they were.
@@sophdixon8013 this!! people act like conservatives are pulling this out of their butts but it's a genuine fact. i bought a YA gay romance book a few years ago. it was marketed as a cute enemies to lovers book and i think the boys were fifteen in it. the book had a full on sex scene. like not a "fade to black" scene but full on detailed almost how-to of gay sex. i'm not a prude but i was shocked. this was a book marketed to kids between like 12-16. it gets a pass because it's "educating them" but i think it's so unncessary. i'm a grown adult and while smut doesn't always bother me, when it's so graphic and so detailed and lasts for pages and pages then it just feels over the top and that's how this book was.
Here's a fun little Hunger Games fact: Collins's agent didn't believe she could sell the original manuscript to publishers so she forced her to add the love tringle bc Twilight was so popular at the time.
The pure irony of the clones being made purely for money and to jump on the bandwagon when THG has commentary on capitalism is so funny to me. They just stick in the tropes of THG and don't even put nearly as much effort and consideration as Suzanne Collins did.
No, the Hunger Games portrays a communist society where the parasitic radicals overthrew the government, made themselves the rich upper class, and then forced the actual productive people into slavery and now mistreat their children for the sake of entertainment. That's literally all communism is.
The Hunger Games was so good because Suzanne Collins had something to say beyond entertaining teenagers. It was a commentary on real politics, and was based on modern day America. There was a subtle pro-choice vs pro-life message, it talked about extreme classism and poverty, violence against children/child soldiers, propaganda. It was essentially an essay with names and faces. Collins wrote it with a clear purpose and a message, and yet people saw how successful it was and tried to copy it with none of the actual intent. That is why The Hunger Games as a work of fiction is still so relevant: because the message it delivers is still relevant a decade later.
One of the things the hunger games did that the other dystopias I read didn’t du, was it was brutal on a whole different level. It wasn’t just a corrupt government killing citizens. It was a government making a sport of kids killing kids. That is brutal, and it was the way Collins wrote Katniss’ part of the rebellion as well as the effects all of it had on katniss. I don’t remember another dystopia having a main character who suffers from major PTSD for instance. And that’s why I believe it stands out - and why people not typically into ya dystopia will likely enjoy the book as well. I enjoyed a lot of the other dystopias, but the hunger games was something else. It was down to earth and scary and brutal
Another that I would say could be seen as similar in levels of brutality is the Gone series. But it’s not really your classic dystopia, I would say it barely fits the genre even tho it’s included tbh. So I see what you mean. But that series was allll about kids trying to survive in brutal conditions and had them fighting to the death as well, and there was some seriously disturbing elements of like gore and body horror at times (but like, not in a gratuitous way). Most of the main characters were dealing with serious ptsd after the events of the books (and during the later ones). It did handle some elements, such as one character’s autistic younger brother, in a pretty icky way though
One dystopian YA series I don't hear a lot about is the Ender's Game saga by Orson ScottCard which was published in 1985. I guess it's because this series was mostly science fiction, but it had social commentary on governments, war, and militarism, and featured a teenage protagonist. Along with The Giver, Ender's Game was as a precursor to many of the themes seen in 2010s YA dystopian novels.
They really thought after hunger games that they could get rid of all the messages and subtext, dilute it down to a love triangle with some rebellion sauce mixed in with a character that's not like the other girls... If you try to reheat the same stuff over and over again and resell it ofc it's gonna blow up someday. Btw my first introduction to dystopia was with uglies and I really don't remember anything about these books except for some really small scenes, for a few years I even thought maybe I made those books up in my mind
There was basically no love triangle in the hunger games books, but they added it in to the movies post twilights success. That’s where the meaning eroded. So we can blame sparkly vampires, I guess?
The part I like about the hunger games is how complex the world is. Like there are INSANE random details. So much overanalyzing to be done, but it’s never overanalyzing when the rabbit hole is so deep. There is however no analyzing to do at all when the quirky pretty girl falls in love and that’s it
I FORGOT ABOUT GONE that book was horrifying to me as a kid but i was obsessed with it. That acoholic kid who turned into stone? When that one kid had childrens hands covered in CEMENT?? The sentient coyotes in the cave??? The flying snakes?? Body horror fever dream book holy shit why was i reading that at like eight or nine Apparently it was a series but i just reread the first book over and over again in third grade
I haven't read the hunger games but i have read the scythe trilogy. I think it came out in 2016-ish?? Antways, its one of my favorite series (and my favorite dystopia) and totally deserves a mention.
my favorite ya dystopia is the unwind dystology by neal shusterman, it’s really well written and almost on par with the hunger games honestly but it’s criminally underrated and not many people have read it…..i highly recommend for anyone looking to get (back) into the ya dystopia genre!!!!
14:39 I read Matched back in the day and couldn’t get past the whole “ooh arranged marriage bad” when it’s still prevalent in most cultures including mine lol. As a teen I remember thinking the protagonist was being ungrateful as she was literally matched with her best friend like she couldn’t have asked for a better outcome from such a big bad government matchmaking system. At least they didn’t match her with a stranger! (The bar was low for me)
The point of Matched isn't that arranged marriage is bad. It's that forced marriage is bad. And honestly that's not even the point of the book, the focus is on censorship. The marketing just focused on the love triangle and romance to an insane degree when the actual tyranny depicted in the book is the surveillance state and the censorship of all art and media. The rebellion in that book is literally learning to write by hand and reading forbidden poetry. They did Allie Condie dirty by revolving all her marketing material around a love triangle that barely exists in the book while ignoring that she wrote a book about how wrong destroying art and culture is.
I’m sure the book tackled heavier issues and more thought provoking subjects, but as I mentioned, it’s been a while so the only thing I remember about it is the matchmaking. And I’m pretty sure I dnfed it before the plot got interesting. Also, thank you for the explanation! I find it obnoxious when the marketing focuses on love triangles when they’re not significant to the plot. They don’t know that they’re pushing potential readers away.
@@Anna-B Well, it doesnt go on for the entire series, which is a breath of fresh air. It's settled by the end of the first, completely. Thank GOD, too. I can only handle so many love triangles where it's "be with cardboard or slightly decorated cardboard"
As someone who read the entirety of Maze Runner and The Selection, I find it funny how the side stories are WAY better than the main ones. Specifically the story about the queen from The Selection, it literally says that she got picked to be the queen because she would do whatever the king wanted no matter what. I think that would've made for a better story than anything that happened in the main trilogy.
I haven't read The Selection but I loooveeddd The Maze Runner as a kid (still do). I've always found The Flare itself and how humanity dealt with it so much more interesting than what Thomas was up to ahaha
I can't believe no one's talking about The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer, Skyhunter by Marie Lu, The Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard, or Warcross by Marie Lu. Those 3 are definitely my favorite books of the ones not made into movies. I guess it's not dystopian, but I remember being obsessed with Renegades by Marissa Meyer. I know the superheroes vs villains premise is cliche, but I still really enjoyed the trilogy.
I read renegades last year (after being a lunar chronicles since middle school, still my favorite series) and wanna read archenemies and the rest of the series later this year!
i loveee warcross!! i never see anyone mention it anywhere and its one of my fav dystopian books. i also love the young elites series and the legend series also by marie lu (shes one of my favourite authors) ill have to check out skyhunter because so far i have loved all her books
Would love to see you unpack the delirium trilogy. Love is illegal and everyone lives in fenced in cities☠️☠️ and did I mention there’s a test? Has a lot of cliche YA Dystopia tropes, but also has some really unique plot points.
the concept of that one really always makes me giggle, it's like the author wasn't even aware of the existence of gay people at all lmfao. like oooh wouldn't it be so horrible if you were told that simply being in LOVE was considered wrong by society and could be met with severe punishment - and we're using a bunch of straight people to make that point lol
@@totally5694 Forbidden love between two consenting adults that goes against the grain of what society deems legal and moral isn’t a brand new concept? YA dystopian novels have a lot of audacity. They change the color of characters’ blood or build a caste system and pretend they invented oppression. As if these experiences haven’t happened historically and currently to marginalized communities. It’s supposed to be unfathomable within our world because it’s a pretty, straight white girl being oppressed. Idk how all of these stories get picked up and approved by editors without a little more nuance.
Divya. There's too many things in this video for me to comment on. Your writing, your beats, your editing are KILLER in this vid! "Oh it's that boy from Journey to the Center of the Earth!.... he got out" I died. Also your american(hick) accent was so good?? All your points are well discussed, the order flows quite well. Anything you make I'm running to my laptop to watch. Would def love to see you review any of those books!
I can't hate on The Selection. It let child me, who never read the books, live out my "The Bachelor but make it edgy" fantasy via Selection roleplay forums
Divya's back! Coming of age stories get to me (got to me in the youth times too) because whatever that first major success you got, especially if the odds were against you (say graduating high school for me), any further success don't feel the same. Sure you got your first salaried job! Woooo. Still broke lol. Reading/seeing someone else overcome their really big thing reminds me of that feeling.
my fondest memories of my teen years was reading a new book every week :’) i would read so much books my grades would lowkey slip and my mom would get mad at me for reading books ??? i remember being so confused bc i was like …. ur getting mad at me for … reading? first generational asian parents lolol
yeah everything after THG felt like a "ride this commercial wave" moneygrab, *especially* the movies. think u hit the nail on the head abt the production dept for the *films* not treating it like a quick cashgrab (the marketing for those films........ another story kljhgf)
About Selection. My sister got the audio book once so I started listening to it too and there is a scene that still lives rent free in my head to this day: The palace, where the prince and all his marriage candidates were at was being attacked by the rebels, who had gotten into the garden and were apparently throwing vegetables against the palace wall (???), so the royals had to close some big shutters (?¿¿) for protection and thats where the main character America Singer could impress the prince, because while the other girls were too afraid to do anything, she manned up and closed some shutters herself! I can neither get over the dangerous vegetable hooligans, nor over the fact, that this was apparently a regular occurance that the royals just accepted, or over anything in this chapter really lol
I dont really remember the books but The Maze Runner movies still slap and I will die on that hill. But of course nothing can take my top spot of The Hunger Games. Books and movies were phenomenal. I'm glad they tried to keep the movies pretty close to the books. THG and THM are my roman empire
Okay, but I actually did really like The Host. It was an interesting character-driven story that _never_ needed to be a movie and I said thay as soon as they announced it. The book was never very visual, but I had really loved Wanda and the concept as a wholem
One thing about Stephanie Meyer is she very good with these fascinating concept and execution for world building even though it reach into horror genre(imprinting lore) but still fascinating
the full extent of Suzanne Collins' talent really hit me when I read TBOSAS! I was very very young when I read the hunger games for the first time and didn't pick up on what makes books GREAT. Honestly I'm so so thankful we had to study film and books in school cause thats how I learnt how to pick up on very small details in writing. Then I read TBOSAS, also as a music lover and musician, and just got it. Like GOTTT it. Maybe I'm overstating it but I don't care, the hunger games changed my life and how I interact with media and I'm absolutely in awe of Suzanne Collins and her mind
My friend I had a crush on gave me matched to read in middle school, so I did. It was... an experience. The whole time I was reading it I was imagining an alternate perspective where some other girls in the world are lesbian! and they kiss and it's forbidden love and more interesting than generic broody man #57!
as a lesbian myself, these worlds are still just real life, lol, so many countries not letting we get married, how can we call it a dystopian when that's daily life? (and even if the country itself allow it, the people may not and try to get in your way, yeah, that's latam reality, asians are not the only ones that have to deal with that type of thing)
a bit late to this video but The Darkest Minds was definitely my favourite dystopian by far when i went through this phase at 12. even now it still eats every single time i reread it. would highly highly reccomend!!!!! im so glad to see it in this video even if it wasnt talked about lol it never gets mentioned
Thank you for the speedruns😂 My first dystopian YA book was I think Divergent? My fav eas actually The Darkest Minds series in this genre. I didn't read The Hunger Games (atleast the first book) because it was always out of the library SOMEONE ALWAYS HAD IT.
The hunger games is timeless. I remember the day my high school meet THG series. Social media wasnt this strong back then . There was a book stand in our school,just for 3 days.they were visiting schools and selling books I guess. My best friend brought this book, just because she liked the cover. She was obsessed when she read it but couldnt find the second and third books . Amd then I borrowed it, then half of our class 😂 in 2 months nearly all of our class have read the series it was that good 😂 then ofc ı bought my own trilogy. İt was the same story with 'the fault in our stars ". Literally none other book series made that impact in my class, not even twillight😂 İt was 10 years ago, and yesterday İ listened the audiobook and enjoyed it all the same.
A big issue with other dystopias are that they almost all contain romance as you mentioned, but a huge one for me is when they have a good concept but then ruin it by the romance. Like The 100 sounds super cool, but everything I’ve read about it is that it’s a romance with a little bit of survival. I genuinely have an extremely hard time finding good YA books these days because I don’t mind a good romance but only if it’s good and I know it’s a romance going in. When the plot goes out the window for some dude I implode
The 100 books are definitely kind of ridiculous with the way the romance takes over. But in the show, the romance is less important than the plot and the exploration of themes like leadership and war and what people will do to survive. The friendships are also well-developed in my opinion. Of course, it feels like a cheesy teen drama at times (especially in the first season), but the show is actually way better than people give it credit for.
You never miss Queen❤. Do you have any dystopian book recommendations or book recommendations in general? I’d love to hear your thoughts on current booktok books! Thanks as always for the great political analysis!
love your channel and views, happy to see am not the only person having certain views about booktube/tok whatever and pop culture also seldom do ytbers your age talk about pop culture and politics and its interdependence, love you!
lol, idk if i should be happy/proud that its only now ive come to know about the selections plot even after my years following booktube and seeing it everywhere, the untouchables? am not surprised if readers know the context and reality cause even us Indians act and appear to be oblivious of various caste issues here as if its a thing from the past.
The only YA dystopian series I can think of that I’ve read that is better then the hunger games is the unwind series by Neal Shusterman but the first book in that series was published a year before THG so….. perhaps it doesn’t count.
one thing that will always be hilarious to me is that despite bellarke being a thing in the books, the author didn't care about them in the show and was really rooting for clexa and loved that the show made clarke openly bisexual. it then inspired her to make OCTAVIA bi in the books and give her a girlfriend lmao.
Well there's also the obvious reason. In the last ten years or so, reality has begun to resemble a YA dystopian novel. Except far less sexy, much dumber, happening in real time and all the adults treat these problems the way adults in A Series of Unfortunate Events treat Count Olaf's disguises. That is, they really should understand how obvious these threats are, yet rarely do and spend more time dismissing the kids' concerns.
I might suggest "The Tripods" as an earlier entry in the genre. It's a series of 60's novels about kids trying to escape & defeat robotic rulers which put brain control modules in everyone's heads.
I read Matched as a teen and don’t remember much but it did introduce me to popular poems that jumpstarted my literature girly career kinda sad that the books teens get these days hav the content ud have to dig the internet for back then
I read the first book in 15 days and I liked the dystopian stuff but I hate the romance. Like I know it’s Petty but like June got Days you know who killed. I started Prodigy and got two or three chapters in just couldn’t do it knowing it was probably gonna be heavy on the romance. I want to finish it as I have the series and even rebel but I just don’t support June and Day as a romance😭
The Hunger Games actually had something to say about American celebrity culture, reality TV, the glamorization of violent media, the way the government uses media to create and spread propaganda, etc., etc., and the fact that nearly all of these books glossed over the genuinely well-written social commentary and went "wow cool bad future!!" >_>
....I just realized, I was aware of the Uglies/Pretties/Specials books, I remember a TON of people had the first book in high school (and I don't think anyone had the other two lol), and a very surface level explainer that was about on par with what Divya said about them in this...but I never thought about the parents before. Maybe that's just a consequence of age and time so it didn't occur to me before and then I forgot about them but like...so, if you live in one place until you become a pretty, does that mean if you have babies you become an Ugly again? Cos, your baby can't live with the pretties, right? Or are babies fine until they reach a certain age where they're deemed ugly now and dispatched to ugly town until they're old enough to be prettified? Is there someone who read the books who can tell me if that was addressed at all?
If I remember correctly the babies are taken from their parents and sent to institutions like orphanages on the outskirts of the city and the parents kinda forget they exist...but it's been years I may have said something wrong
Once you age out of being a pretty you're moved to suburbia to have and raise your kids which I think are called Youngs. They become uglies as preteens and are moved to dorms like the beginning of uglies to get ready to become pretties. These books were unhinged lol. The game economy in extras predicted our current social media landscape though.
I remember it so vividly lol. I think I would defend this series today, it was a well-developed world despite the really basic framing and labelling that Divya points out.
@@isobelandrews6588 i remember when i read it it felt like a really good series. but if you ask me now to tell you about the series, i honestly don't remember much lol. but for sure it's an underrated series
As someone still obsessed with YA dystopia, I can tell you that the parents are considered "older pretties" (people 30+ years) and that children live with their parents until they're 6-years-old. During the time they live with their parents, the children care considered "littles."
Maybe it was last time ever in world to make dystopian stuff as entertainment. Now its too real. Sometimes i just feel that maybe in subconscious mind we knew worse is coming after 2020 and it was intersting way to cope with it. To have those elements that are rising, are ofc new story material and make possibility to make something really entertaining.
And as a librarian i know ya dystopia isnt popular anymore, least exciting genre ecen. If i was 13 seeing the news today, dystopian book would make just uncomfortable, maybe sad.
@@sinisiren6992 my 13 year old younger sister got the new hunger games book and I caught her bawling her eyes out at 3am in bed bc she thought that since adults were saying dystopia was becoming reality she would have to prepare to fight in the hunger games….it was funny at the time but thinking back on it….
This is so strange to me. Because it’s like… war wasn’t invented in our lifetimes. Terrible things have been happening across history. In fact literacy across the globe has never been higher. Poverty rates have plummeted. Medical advancements mean people are living longer and healthier lives. While progress is slower than we’d hoped, action is being taken to shift to renewable energy and every year more and more animal species are being saved from extinction. A decolonisation effort is taking place across Africa where people are reclaiming their governments and land from neocolonial control, and African economies are expanding massively year on year. The world is extremely far from perfect but the idea that dystopia is dead because the world now is unlivably awful and completely bleak, and there’s nothing to look forward to, is extremely short sighted and frankly silly. Also very odd to mention 2020 because while the pandemic was terrible, the speed by which the vaccine was produced and the collaborative effort to distribute it and save lives was massive and a testament to how far we’ve come as a species. If all you want to see is doom and gloom it’s easy to miss and diminish all the great things people are doing to make the world better.
@@kaywho6477 good reminder. maybe im just so exhausted doing everything i can to climate change and worrying it all time, it makes my thinking like that.
@@kaywho6477 exactly. there has always been war and famine and cruelty, since humans decided to build civilisations and desire more. but we made it through that. not without lasting scars, not without hard lessons learnt, but we made it. there is so much left to learn and to love, i think humanity can keep going through more hate and violence and disaster because it's connection and empathy that brought us so far. and it's what keeps us going. rumination is a hobby of mine, but looking through the world with grey glasses that are so dark you're almost blind are as bad as rosy ones that are so red you can't see other colours. there's so much beauty and good in this world but we have to keep looking for it and fighting for it. isn't that a message of so many rebellion centred dystopias? to fight for good? things aren't perfect but we're doing a lot better in many ways. i hope everyone can wake up and believe they can find good in something today. or they could do even one good thing today. just like divya said - maybe it's naive, or maybe it's optimistic. if i have to be 'naive' to make myself happy in this world, to be inspired to see good and do good, i think maybe it's worth it :) i hope you're all doing well, and you all make it through whatever life has thrown at you. i know not everyone has my view, and there are so many valid reasons for that, so much trauma that i could never understand. but i hope everyone can wake up and feel, see, or do some good today. you guys deserve it
its funny that matched was so bad bc ally condie can like actually write. receipts? summerlost. granted that book doesnt have any romance (and i think its technically middlegrade idk) but its like its one of my favourite healed my yr 6 soul after being scarred by the first 20 pages of matched its still good.
I could be wrong since I didn't actually do research on this. But didn't Hunger Games's inspiration partially come from the Japanese book/movie "Battle Royale"?
collins says she had never heard of battle royale before writing the first book but i doubt that, she never had to admit since her story got more popular but she didn’t create this concept at all, and i actually think none of these books would exist without battle royale
Girrrrrrrl, I'm not lying, I was watching the new Hunger Games movie few days ago & I was like, what if, out of nowhere I decided to write a dystopian book then what would I write about. I actually, genuinely thought that probably I would write about a society where everyone is gay & being straight is illegal. But our main girl got some Divergent shit happening, so....she is bi. 🤣🤣I mean that is one of the dumbest dopest thing I've ever imagined. Also, Shout out to my South Asian girlies 🤍
There is a 2 volume manga series and the plot is literally a meteor hit and made everyone gay and then you got MC and she isn't gay. She has a crush on her male best friend :O drama. Its fr such a silly plot.
Problem with that is you're going to have bigots thinking you're an ally portraying "what the world will come to" and "how the good people are oppressed by the freaks"
seeing you list all the dystopian books of the early 2010s reminded me of this one book/series?? called Bumped that I think you should read... basically a virus makes anyone over 18 infertile so teens get paid as surrogates and it follows these twins. I cant remember much of it but im curious of what your opinon is. another book from that time that I loved was the adoration of jenna fox series which deals with genetic cloning 👀👀
I remember reading the maze runner for the first time and being borderline pissed off all the time because I hated Teresa. I was really interested in group B when they got introduced though but that was mainly just because Im a lesbian and very excited by the idea of never having to deal with guys like ever and just being able to hang out with a bunch of girls in a big maze.
recently, my cousin made me read shatter me. i actually laughed at how bad the writing was at times. 😂 i'm definitely not reading the rest of the series no matter how much my cousin tries to convince me. i have to reread hunger games at some point. i was probably too young to fully appreciate it as a teen. maybe i can convince my cousin to read it as well.
Red Rising I feel improves on the hunger games format. Its starts establishing the government as needing to be taken down from the very beginning AND addresses the difficulties of restructuring an entire society in a very realistic way. The author himself stated that he made the first book like hunger games to get enough traction to write the story he really wanted to write and reeeaaaaallly delivered.
Glad to see the Gone books get some recognition. It sometimes feels like there's 0 public interest in them. Definitely was not suitable for 10 year old me, especially in the later books
The people who loved the hunger games and now are backing the state controlling peoples movement - or the people who missed the race of all the characters in the book… like ??????? Anyway 🍉🍉🍉🍉
After reading the hunger games it’s hard to read much else better so when i read divergent i was so disappointed i just didn’t find it as re-readable and the movie adaptation missed some of my favourite parts not like the movie adaptation of the hunger games didnt but the difference is that i want to rewatch it and wanted to continue reading i don’t care as much for divergent becuase hunger games was so phenomenal and also the romance was so much better in the hunger games which hooked me.
This is completely off topic, but….okay, so you know how the song All Too Well was made into a book in the short film? I would LOVE to see you turn songs into book covers!! It’s just an idea. You’re so talented, and I love all your videos!! 😃🙌🏻
Part of it might be that those that grew up with thg are now “millennials”, maybe they kind of grew out of the genre (i haven't fully finished watching your video so sorry if you mentioned that!) . But also as others mentioned younger audiences are being exposed to waaay more darker themes that are s3ggsual in nature (think “euphoria”) so expectations are different. Too many adults are in the sphere of YA who are pushing things that are, frankly, not YOUNG adult. Just adult. I'm about to have a kid of my own and the future terrifies me :(
I feel like the only reason a lot of these books are YA are because the characters are around that age and… that’s it. Maybe it’s something about the writing style as well
Kinda disappointed that you didn't talk about Red Rising, because out of all the ya dystopias ive seen Red Rising is by far the best. The First Hunger games was good but everything after it slowly gets worse. The Balad of Songbird and Snake was really good too.
Red Rising is the best book on this list, imho. When the author went to publish the first book, he was pushed by his editors to create something with a YA dystopian Hunger Games feel because that was what was popular at the time. However, it tricks you starting the second book and turns into an high-stakes space opera that is a glaring critique of the horrors of war. Sorry to the other books on this list, but Red Rising is just different
The selection review that you read was a joke comment if you didn’t catch that. They compared it to the bachelor (minus the bloodshed) right after that. It wasn’t meant to be serious about being like the hunger games.
"That already exists" it's almost like dystopian fiction is about taking something that exists in the real world and presenting in an exagerrated way in order to comment upon it. Sometimes badly.
i would be so pissed if i was Suzanne Collins and the world just completely missed the point of my books. the THG books resemble the real world so so so much, it’s honestly ironic when i see people preach and root for Katniss and then call the people with the exact same goal as her “savages” or “t3rrorists”, or just straight up ignore the political messages and aspects of the trilogy. it’s the “underdogs” being pit against each other to forget who put them there in the first place, how do people not realize?
it’s similar to why books like Divergent rose to popularity so quickly. not only because of the trend that THG set, but because of the lack of “politics”. it’s basically a drama-romance with the appeal and aesthetic of rebellion to up the stakes for the white main character with the personality and backbone of a sack of flour and her dark tall and handsome brooding bad boy love interest
For real aye
When I read the books I cried a little because it described exactly my life without the child killing reality show. This is literally what a third world (or fascistic developing countries) country looks like.
@@ophelie2620Exactly! For some of us it’s a reflection of our own reality and hits too close to home
when i saw a gale stan who was an 'israeli' and told me its just a movie..
Someone on instagram comments was arguing and they basically said that the capitol isn't israel, the capitol is palestine. I wanted to shoot myself in the face
fact of the matter is, young adults/teens aren't reading the YA genre like they used to. i've seen on booktok girls in middle school reading super dark, heavy disturbing dark romance" there was drama recently in the booktok sphere where an underage boy asked for book recs. he said his favorite book was the hunger games. he got so many responses from grown ass women telling him he was too "innocent" for reading those books and reccomending him things like "still beating" and that "adline book - all of which are even too dark and too disturbing for me at my big age of 30.
I’m 22 now, but when I was 12 I was reading the same dark stuff!! Except back then it was on wattpad, all these “dark romances” have the quality of wattpad books, most of them don’t seem to have more than one round of editing (if even THAT). Before you would need to have your book published through a real publishing company, now we have more indie writers which is great but the quality is starting to spread to big publisher books. I wish people would STOP asking for smut in every book? It’s very cringey and most of the time they have some out of pocket weird ways to describe the smut.
@@jazg3950 yeah like i was reading fanfic back in the day as a teen/pre-teen and some of it had dark elements, but i still think very young teens being exposed to some of these books isn't a good thing. there's one book where two people are forced to grape each other and they fall in love after. and that's being pushed on tiktok as a romance. i'm all for indie books and i do genuinely think booktok is a good thing. it's exposing people to reading whereas they might not have enjoyed it before. but it feels like things that are flat out abuse are being read by very young teens that might not have the mental maturity to recognize, no this isn't a romance to strive for. and yes!!! i once saw a booktubr say she wouldn't read anything if it didn't have smut. that shuts off so many good books. i get personal preference and all that but a book doesn't have to have smut to still be good. now we're hearing of authors being told by their publishers they have to include smut. so unless they publish through an indie publisher, christian publisher, or self publish, they're closed off from a lot of markets.
I’m 16, and when I went to the book store I found full on smut books, in the CHILDREN’S section, not young adult CHILDREN, things like the love hypothesis, ugly love, ice breaker. Kids are being conditioned to be desensitised to all of this
I suspect this might be a consequence of books like the Court of Thornes and Roses books being classified as 'YA' when they really shouldn't have been, but the characters were teens (or...young adults? I don't remember, but if they weren't teens then that just shows how older generations infantilized millennials to treat books about young adults as books for teens - and I know, "YA" means young adult but lbr YA basically means 'books for teens' not 'books for early 20-somethings) and the writing quality was 'YA' style. I know they eventually made a 'new adult' category for those but that never really stuck, from what I saw. And its fine for those books to exist but they should've been put on the shelves with the adult books.
Also, Five Nights at Freddy's might be another reason. Back when my nieces were in first grade, I asked my brother what they were into, and he answered Five Nights at Freddy's. He didn't know what that was, but I, a terminally online person, did lol. Apparently their whole class loved it, and I can see why - the first few games didn't have an overt story unless you dug into it, it was just 'oh ho ho what if animatronics were evil and wanted to eat you!' and that is a pretty kid-friendly scare concept, but also even if you don't dig into the story to even realize there is a story in the first few games, the third game has a literal corpse that you can see inside the thing that's attacking you, so like...its a kid-friendly concept but is also really really dark. Which, I will say kids should be able to have kid-oriented horror, Goosebumps and A Series of Unfortunate Events and other things that ranged from spooky to scary were very popular when I was little, and its great. But Five Nights at Freddy's has also been a much harder gateway than they were.
@@sophdixon8013 this!! people act like conservatives are pulling this out of their butts but it's a genuine fact. i bought a YA gay romance book a few years ago. it was marketed as a cute enemies to lovers book and i think the boys were fifteen in it. the book had a full on sex scene. like not a "fade to black" scene but full on detailed almost how-to of gay sex. i'm not a prude but i was shocked. this was a book marketed to kids between like 12-16. it gets a pass because it's "educating them" but i think it's so unncessary. i'm a grown adult and while smut doesn't always bother me, when it's so graphic and so detailed and lasts for pages and pages then it just feels over the top and that's how this book was.
Here's a fun little Hunger Games fact: Collins's agent didn't believe she could sell the original manuscript to publishers so she forced her to add the love tringle bc Twilight was so popular at the time.
would’ve been so okay if gale nvr existed 😻
so youre saying THG having a weird love triangle was caused by 9/11
@@ghoulboss7848 and Mormonism
@@imake_edits Which one was gale? The blonde boring one or the brunette hot one?
@@sheevpalpatine6466 the brunette hot one XD
The guy who wrote GONE is married to the author + is a cowriter of Animorphs. That’s how you KNOW it’s good stuff
The pure irony of the clones being made purely for money and to jump on the bandwagon when THG has commentary on capitalism is so funny to me. They just stick in the tropes of THG and don't even put nearly as much effort and consideration as Suzanne Collins did.
Especially when watching the movies. I love that the movies are so opposite of the message the books are trying to convey
No, the Hunger Games portrays a communist society where the parasitic radicals overthrew the government, made themselves the rich upper class, and then forced the actual productive people into slavery and now mistreat their children for the sake of entertainment. That's literally all communism is.
The Hunger Games was so good because Suzanne Collins had something to say beyond entertaining teenagers. It was a commentary on real politics, and was based on modern day America. There was a subtle pro-choice vs pro-life message, it talked about extreme classism and poverty, violence against children/child soldiers, propaganda. It was essentially an essay with names and faces. Collins wrote it with a clear purpose and a message, and yet people saw how successful it was and tried to copy it with none of the actual intent. That is why The Hunger Games as a work of fiction is still so relevant: because the message it delivers is still relevant a decade later.
One of the things the hunger games did that the other dystopias I read didn’t du, was it was brutal on a whole different level. It wasn’t just a corrupt government killing citizens.
It was a government making a sport of kids killing kids. That is brutal, and it was the way Collins wrote Katniss’ part of the rebellion as well as the effects all of it had on katniss. I don’t remember another dystopia having a main character who suffers from major PTSD for instance.
And that’s why I believe it stands out - and why people not typically into ya dystopia will likely enjoy the book as well.
I enjoyed a lot of the other dystopias, but the hunger games was something else. It was down to earth and scary and brutal
Another that I would say could be seen as similar in levels of brutality is the Gone series. But it’s not really your classic dystopia, I would say it barely fits the genre even tho it’s included tbh. So I see what you mean. But that series was allll about kids trying to survive in brutal conditions and had them fighting to the death as well, and there was some seriously disturbing elements of like gore and body horror at times (but like, not in a gratuitous way). Most of the main characters were dealing with serious ptsd after the events of the books (and during the later ones). It did handle some elements, such as one character’s autistic younger brother, in a pretty icky way though
One dystopian YA series I don't hear a lot about is the Ender's Game saga by Orson ScottCard which was published in 1985. I guess it's because this series was mostly science fiction, but it had social commentary on governments, war, and militarism, and featured a teenage protagonist. Along with The Giver, Ender's Game was as a precursor to many of the themes seen in 2010s YA dystopian novels.
Ender’s Game is my favorite book :)
I think many people stopped being fans of it when the author started writing homophobic stuff online.
I love that series
That book terrified me 😂
I LOVE THAT BOOK OMG YESSSS
They really thought after hunger games that they could get rid of all the messages and subtext, dilute it down to a love triangle with some rebellion sauce mixed in with a character that's not like the other girls... If you try to reheat the same stuff over and over again and resell it ofc it's gonna blow up someday.
Btw my first introduction to dystopia was with uglies and I really don't remember anything about these books except for some really small scenes, for a few years I even thought maybe I made those books up in my mind
The only thing I remember were the hoverboards, the best part of the books easily.
Yep that was my intro to teen dystopia as well and I can’t remember much of it either 😂
There was basically no love triangle in the hunger games books, but they added it in to the movies post twilights success. That’s where the meaning eroded. So we can blame sparkly vampires, I guess?
The part I like about the hunger games is how complex the world is. Like there are INSANE random details. So much overanalyzing to be done, but it’s never overanalyzing when the rabbit hole is so deep. There is however no analyzing to do at all when the quirky pretty girl falls in love and that’s it
(also I read Uglies for battle of the books and I don’t think I hated it but it was again very basic)
I FORGOT ABOUT GONE that book was horrifying to me as a kid but i was obsessed with it. That acoholic kid who turned into stone? When that one kid had childrens hands covered in CEMENT?? The sentient coyotes in the cave??? The flying snakes?? Body horror fever dream book holy shit why was i reading that at like eight or nine
Apparently it was a series but i just reread the first book over and over again in third grade
Such a good series!
So so underrated!! I just went back and revisited the series recently
Yeah the kid who turned to stone still makes me sick to this day
@@funty420 oh yes! Orc experienced some horrific stuff in his life!
Gone was the best !!
I always love this mix of humour and thoughtful analysis you do. "He made it back" had me rolling 🤣
I was looking for a comment about that i was wheezing
RIGHT I WAS ON THE FLOOR
I haven't read the hunger games but i have read the scythe trilogy. I think it came out in 2016-ish?? Antways, its one of my favorite series (and my favorite dystopia) and totally deserves a mention.
Yeah they did a really good job, especially with the ending which I did not expect at all
They landed the ending so well with scythe, especially compared to other ya series @@CarbonFang25
You should never judge a book by it's cover - especially with YA dystopia. It's always the ones with nice covers that end up letting you down.
Hahahaha, that's kinda true😊
my favorite ya dystopia is the unwind dystology by neal shusterman, it’s really well written and almost on par with the hunger games honestly but it’s criminally underrated and not many people have read it…..i highly recommend for anyone looking to get (back) into the ya dystopia genre!!!!
Have you read his Scythe series??
I love the Unwind Dystology so much and I’m so glad someone mentioned it here! I swear I never hear anybody talking about it
@@fisamels228 i have!! i never see anyone mention it anywhere and its literally one of my favourite dystopian series ever
@@eva.kateee same I’m OBSESSED it’s so good!!!
So dang good
14:39 I read Matched back in the day and couldn’t get past the whole “ooh arranged marriage bad” when it’s still prevalent in most cultures including mine lol. As a teen I remember thinking the protagonist was being ungrateful as she was literally matched with her best friend like she couldn’t have asked for a better outcome from such a big bad government matchmaking system. At least they didn’t match her with a stranger! (The bar was low for me)
The point of Matched isn't that arranged marriage is bad. It's that forced marriage is bad. And honestly that's not even the point of the book, the focus is on censorship. The marketing just focused on the love triangle and romance to an insane degree when the actual tyranny depicted in the book is the surveillance state and the censorship of all art and media. The rebellion in that book is literally learning to write by hand and reading forbidden poetry. They did Allie Condie dirty by revolving all her marketing material around a love triangle that barely exists in the book while ignoring that she wrote a book about how wrong destroying art and culture is.
I’m sure the book tackled heavier issues and more thought provoking subjects, but as I mentioned, it’s been a while so the only thing I remember about it is the matchmaking. And I’m pretty sure I dnfed it before the plot got interesting. Also, thank you for the explanation! I find it obnoxious when the marketing focuses on love triangles when they’re not significant to the plot. They don’t know that they’re pushing potential readers away.
I thought the premise was interesting, but I hate love triangles where the “winner” is super obvious.
I tried to read matched but I prefered the best friend over the other guy LOL so when it was really obvious who she was ending up with I dropped it.
@@Anna-B Well, it doesnt go on for the entire series, which is a breath of fresh air. It's settled by the end of the first, completely. Thank GOD, too. I can only handle so many love triangles where it's "be with cardboard or slightly decorated cardboard"
"oh its that kid from journey to the centre of the earth... he made it back" I CACKLED
I really loved the Lunar Chronicles, so I'm glad to see it
As someone who read the entirety of Maze Runner and The Selection, I find it funny how the side stories are WAY better than the main ones. Specifically the story about the queen from The Selection, it literally says that she got picked to be the queen because she would do whatever the king wanted no matter what. I think that would've made for a better story than anything that happened in the main trilogy.
I haven't read The Selection but I loooveeddd The Maze Runner as a kid (still do). I've always found The Flare itself and how humanity dealt with it so much more interesting than what Thomas was up to ahaha
something hilarious as well is that the gone series published books with stickers that said 'better than the hunger games' in the uk
"Rolling my eyes so far that I started see my past lives" is the best way I've heard to describe some of these!
I can't believe no one's talking about The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer, Skyhunter by Marie Lu, The Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard, or Warcross by Marie Lu. Those 3 are definitely my favorite books of the ones not made into movies.
I guess it's not dystopian, but I remember being obsessed with Renegades by Marissa Meyer. I know the superheroes vs villains premise is cliche, but I still really enjoyed the trilogy.
I read renegades last year (after being a lunar chronicles since middle school, still my favorite series) and wanna read archenemies and the rest of the series later this year!
renegades is my favorite book series and i’m glad to see people acknowledge it
i loveee warcross!! i never see anyone mention it anywhere and its one of my fav dystopian books. i also love the young elites series and the legend series also by marie lu (shes one of my favourite authors) ill have to check out skyhunter because so far i have loved all her books
The Red Queen is crap.
The Lunar Chronicles is great but not a dystopian series. It's more of a futuristic retelling of a few fairy tales joined together.
Thank you for putting Unwind on your little timeline chart even though you didnt talk about it
Unwind was so... horrifying? Shocking? I have a lot of feelings about this book
Would love to see you unpack the delirium trilogy. Love is illegal and everyone lives in fenced in cities☠️☠️ and did I mention there’s a test? Has a lot of cliche YA Dystopia tropes, but also has some really unique plot points.
the concept of that one really always makes me giggle, it's like the author wasn't even aware of the existence of gay people at all lmfao. like oooh wouldn't it be so horrible if you were told that simply being in LOVE was considered wrong by society and could be met with severe punishment - and we're using a bunch of straight people to make that point lol
@@totally5694 Forbidden love between two consenting adults that goes against the grain of what society deems legal and moral isn’t a brand new concept? YA dystopian novels have a lot of audacity. They change the color of characters’ blood or build a caste system and pretend they invented oppression. As if these experiences haven’t happened historically and currently to marginalized communities. It’s supposed to be unfathomable within our world because it’s a pretty, straight white girl being oppressed. Idk how all of these stories get picked up and approved by editors without a little more nuance.
I only read the first book of that series bc it was maybe the worst thing I have ever read 😭😭
Divya. There's too many things in this video for me to comment on. Your writing, your beats, your editing are KILLER in this vid! "Oh it's that boy from Journey to the Center of the Earth!.... he got out" I died. Also your american(hick) accent was so good?? All your points are well discussed, the order flows quite well. Anything you make I'm running to my laptop to watch. Would def love to see you review any of those books!
I can't hate on The Selection. It let child me, who never read the books, live out my "The Bachelor but make it edgy" fantasy via Selection roleplay forums
Me too, while reading it I didn't even realise it was YA dystopia, probably because it's mostly romance. I still love it cause it's great.
Divya's back! Coming of age stories get to me (got to me in the youth times too) because whatever that first major success you got, especially if the odds were against you (say graduating high school for me), any further success don't feel the same. Sure you got your first salaried job! Woooo. Still broke lol. Reading/seeing someone else overcome their really big thing reminds me of that feeling.
my fondest memories of my teen years was reading a new book every week :’) i would read so much books my grades would lowkey slip and my mom would get mad at me for reading books ??? i remember being so confused bc i was like …. ur getting mad at me for … reading? first generational asian parents lolol
yeah everything after THG felt like a "ride this commercial wave" moneygrab, *especially* the movies. think u hit the nail on the head abt the production dept for the *films* not treating it like a quick cashgrab (the marketing for those films........ another story kljhgf)
Ehhh... I wouldn't say that about scythe or lunar chronicles, but for the most part yeah. There are some hidden gems in there somewhere
About Selection. My sister got the audio book once so I started listening to it too and there is a scene that still lives rent free in my head to this day: The palace, where the prince and all his marriage candidates were at was being attacked by the rebels, who had gotten into the garden and were apparently throwing vegetables against the palace wall (???), so the royals had to close some big shutters (?¿¿) for protection and thats where the main character America Singer could impress the prince, because while the other girls were too afraid to do anything, she manned up and closed some shutters herself! I can neither get over the dangerous vegetable hooligans, nor over the fact, that this was apparently a regular occurance that the royals just accepted, or over anything in this chapter really lol
glad the anticipated mention of Lexa when talking about the 100 was indeed in the vid thanks divya!!
I dont really remember the books but The Maze Runner movies still slap and I will die on that hill. But of course nothing can take my top spot of The Hunger Games. Books and movies were phenomenal. I'm glad they tried to keep the movies pretty close to the books. THG and THM are my roman empire
Okay, but I actually did really like The Host. It was an interesting character-driven story that _never_ needed to be a movie and I said thay as soon as they announced it. The book was never very visual, but I had really loved Wanda and the concept as a wholem
The Host is to this day one of my most favourite books. Such an interesting sci-fi concept and lovely characters.
it would be decent if it weren't for the fucking PEDOPHILIA lol
One thing about Stephanie Meyer is she very good with these fascinating concept and execution for world building even though it reach into horror genre(imprinting lore) but still fascinating
Calling the Lunar Chronicles a Teen Dystopian Hunger games Copycat is completely unfair and untrue.
I know!! I will not stand for this outrage. It has a little bit of dystopian, but it is more of sci-fi fantasy.
the full extent of Suzanne Collins' talent really hit me when I read TBOSAS! I was very very young when I read the hunger games for the first time and didn't pick up on what makes books GREAT. Honestly I'm so so thankful we had to study film and books in school cause thats how I learnt how to pick up on very small details in writing. Then I read TBOSAS, also as a music lover and musician, and just got it. Like GOTTT it. Maybe I'm overstating it but I don't care, the hunger games changed my life and how I interact with media and I'm absolutely in awe of Suzanne Collins and her mind
My friend I had a crush on gave me matched to read in middle school, so I did. It was... an experience. The whole time I was reading it I was imagining an alternate perspective where some other girls in the world are lesbian! and they kiss and it's forbidden love and more interesting than generic broody man #57!
as a lesbian myself, these worlds are still just real life, lol, so many countries not letting we get married, how can we call it a dystopian when that's daily life? (and even if the country itself allow it, the people may not and try to get in your way, yeah, that's latam reality, asians are not the only ones that have to deal with that type of thing)
a bit late to this video but The Darkest Minds was definitely my favourite dystopian by far when i went through this phase at 12. even now it still eats every single time i reread it. would highly highly reccomend!!!!! im so glad to see it in this video even if it wasnt talked about lol it never gets mentioned
Thank you for the speedruns😂
My first dystopian YA book was I think Divergent? My fav eas actually The Darkest Minds series in this genre. I didn't read The Hunger Games (atleast the first book) because it was always out of the library SOMEONE ALWAYS HAD IT.
I LOVE The Darkest minds. I'm currently on book 3
The darkest minds was so good!
An underrated Dystopian book that I barely hear anyone talk about is Unwind by Neal Shusterman. IT IS SOOOOO SCRUMPTIOUS. ITS SO UNDERRATED
gone is mentioned so i can die in peace
Luko EnergyBottom caught me off guard so hard.
The hunger games is timeless. I remember the day my high school meet THG series. Social media wasnt this strong back then . There was a book stand in our school,just for 3 days.they were visiting schools and selling books I guess. My best friend brought this book, just because she liked the cover. She was obsessed when she read it but couldnt find the second and third books . Amd then I borrowed it, then half of our class 😂 in 2 months nearly all of our class have read the series it was that good 😂 then ofc ı bought my own trilogy. İt was the same story with 'the fault in our stars ". Literally none other book series made that impact in my class, not even twillight😂
İt was 10 years ago, and yesterday İ listened the audiobook and enjoyed it all the same.
A big issue with other dystopias are that they almost all contain romance as you mentioned, but a huge one for me is when they have a good concept but then ruin it by the romance. Like The 100 sounds super cool, but everything I’ve read about it is that it’s a romance with a little bit of survival. I genuinely have an extremely hard time finding good YA books these days because I don’t mind a good romance but only if it’s good and I know it’s a romance going in. When the plot goes out the window for some dude I implode
You are right, The 100’s tv series is so much better than the books and that is a fact. Take it from someone that has obsessed with it for a while
The 100 books are definitely kind of ridiculous with the way the romance takes over. But in the show, the romance is less important than the plot and the exploration of themes like leadership and war and what people will do to survive. The friendships are also well-developed in my opinion. Of course, it feels like a cheesy teen drama at times (especially in the first season), but the show is actually way better than people give it credit for.
Omggg need to get Kittl!! Thank you for the recommendation Divya - Also love this style of vid smashed ittt
You never miss Queen❤. Do you have any dystopian book recommendations or book recommendations in general? I’d love to hear your thoughts on current booktok books! Thanks as always for the great political analysis!
love your channel and views, happy to see am not the only person having certain views about booktube/tok whatever and pop culture also seldom do ytbers your age talk about pop culture and politics and its interdependence, love you!
lol, idk if i should be happy/proud that its only now ive come to know about the selections plot even after my years following booktube and seeing it everywhere, the untouchables? am not surprised if readers know the context and reality cause even us Indians act and appear to be oblivious of various caste issues here as if its a thing from the past.
The only YA dystopian series I can think of that I’ve read that is better then the hunger games is the unwind series by Neal Shusterman but the first book in that series was published a year before THG so….. perhaps it doesn’t count.
' And this girl (lexa) was hot ' damn right she was AND SHES NOT EVEN IN THE BOOKS. Shameful
one thing that will always be hilarious to me is that despite bellarke being a thing in the books, the author didn't care about them in the show and was really rooting for clexa and loved that the show made clarke openly bisexual.
it then inspired her to make OCTAVIA bi in the books and give her a girlfriend lmao.
and i thought i was weird for writing hunger games fanfics in 2023
Well there's also the obvious reason. In the last ten years or so, reality has begun to resemble a YA dystopian novel. Except far less sexy, much dumber, happening in real time and all the adults treat these problems the way adults in A Series of Unfortunate Events treat Count Olaf's disguises. That is, they really should understand how obvious these threats are, yet rarely do and spend more time dismissing the kids' concerns.
I might suggest "The Tripods" as an earlier entry in the genre. It's a series of 60's novels about kids trying to escape & defeat robotic rulers which put brain control modules in everyone's heads.
Cressa Fire Hydrant - DEAD
Oh my god I love you, we literally share the same thought process but you're so awesome at articulating your thoughts 😂💙
love this new vid sm and also love the presentation !!!!!
CreSsa Fire Firehydrant is SOOOO on point
I read Matched as a teen and don’t remember much but it did introduce me to popular poems that jumpstarted my literature girly career kinda sad that the books teens get these days hav the content ud have to dig the internet for back then
You need to check out Wither, Fever and Sever omg -- these books sat in my mind for years and still fascinate me to this day because they were Insane
The hunger games and the selection are so so good, the 100 was also alright. Gone is also quite good
I remember reading the Legend series, I enjoyed it fr
I read the first book in 15 days and I liked the dystopian stuff but I hate the romance. Like I know it’s Petty but like June got Days you know who killed.
I started Prodigy and got two or three chapters in just couldn’t do it knowing it was probably gonna be heavy on the romance.
I want to finish it as I have the series and even rebel but
I just don’t support June and Day as a romance😭
The Hunger Games actually had something to say about American celebrity culture, reality TV, the glamorization of violent media, the way the government uses media to create and spread propaganda, etc., etc., and the fact that nearly all of these books glossed over the genuinely well-written social commentary and went "wow cool bad future!!" >_>
Ahh I’m so glad I saw The Darkest Minds series. It’s very nostalgic for me, even if it is not the best that I have read.
....I just realized, I was aware of the Uglies/Pretties/Specials books, I remember a TON of people had the first book in high school (and I don't think anyone had the other two lol), and a very surface level explainer that was about on par with what Divya said about them in this...but I never thought about the parents before. Maybe that's just a consequence of age and time so it didn't occur to me before and then I forgot about them but like...so, if you live in one place until you become a pretty, does that mean if you have babies you become an Ugly again? Cos, your baby can't live with the pretties, right? Or are babies fine until they reach a certain age where they're deemed ugly now and dispatched to ugly town until they're old enough to be prettified? Is there someone who read the books who can tell me if that was addressed at all?
If I remember correctly the babies are taken from their parents and sent to institutions like orphanages on the outskirts of the city and the parents kinda forget they exist...but it's been years I may have said something wrong
Once you age out of being a pretty you're moved to suburbia to have and raise your kids which I think are called Youngs. They become uglies as preteens and are moved to dorms like the beginning of uglies to get ready to become pretties. These books were unhinged lol. The game economy in extras predicted our current social media landscape though.
I remember it so vividly lol. I think I would defend this series today, it was a well-developed world despite the really basic framing and labelling that Divya points out.
@@isobelandrews6588 i remember when i read it it felt like a really good series. but if you ask me now to tell you about the series, i honestly don't remember much lol. but for sure it's an underrated series
As someone still obsessed with YA dystopia, I can tell you that the parents are considered "older pretties" (people 30+ years) and that children live with their parents until they're 6-years-old. During the time they live with their parents, the children care considered "littles."
YESSS A 17 MINUTE DIVYA VIDEO I AM READY ‼️‼️
Maybe it was last time ever in world to make dystopian stuff as entertainment. Now its too real. Sometimes i just feel that maybe in subconscious mind we knew worse is coming after 2020 and it was intersting way to cope with it. To have those elements that are rising, are ofc new story material and make possibility to make something really entertaining.
And as a librarian i know ya dystopia isnt popular anymore, least exciting genre ecen. If i was 13 seeing the news today, dystopian book would make just uncomfortable, maybe sad.
@@sinisiren6992 my 13 year old younger sister got the new hunger games book and I caught her bawling her eyes out at 3am in bed bc she thought that since adults were saying dystopia was becoming reality she would have to prepare to fight in the hunger games….it was funny at the time but thinking back on it….
This is so strange to me. Because it’s like… war wasn’t invented in our lifetimes. Terrible things have been happening across history. In fact literacy across the globe has never been higher. Poverty rates have plummeted. Medical advancements mean people are living longer and healthier lives. While progress is slower than we’d hoped, action is being taken to shift to renewable energy and every year more and more animal species are being saved from extinction. A decolonisation effort is taking place across Africa where people are reclaiming their governments and land from neocolonial control, and African economies are expanding massively year on year. The world is extremely far from perfect but the idea that dystopia is dead because the world now is unlivably awful and completely bleak, and there’s nothing to look forward to, is extremely short sighted and frankly silly.
Also very odd to mention 2020 because while the pandemic was terrible, the speed by which the vaccine was produced and the collaborative effort to distribute it and save lives was massive and a testament to how far we’ve come as a species. If all you want to see is doom and gloom it’s easy to miss and diminish all the great things people are doing to make the world better.
@@kaywho6477 good reminder. maybe im just so exhausted doing everything i can to climate change and worrying it all time, it makes my thinking like that.
@@kaywho6477 exactly. there has always been war and famine and cruelty, since humans decided to build civilisations and desire more. but we made it through that. not without lasting scars, not without hard lessons learnt, but we made it. there is so much left to learn and to love, i think humanity can keep going through more hate and violence and disaster because it's connection and empathy that brought us so far. and it's what keeps us going.
rumination is a hobby of mine, but looking through the world with grey glasses that are so dark you're almost blind are as bad as rosy ones that are so red you can't see other colours. there's so much beauty and good in this world but we have to keep looking for it and fighting for it. isn't that a message of so many rebellion centred dystopias? to fight for good? things aren't perfect but we're doing a lot better in many ways. i hope everyone can wake up and believe they can find good in something today. or they could do even one good thing today. just like divya said - maybe it's naive, or maybe it's optimistic. if i have to be 'naive' to make myself happy in this world, to be inspired to see good and do good, i think maybe it's worth it :)
i hope you're all doing well, and you all make it through whatever life has thrown at you. i know not everyone has my view, and there are so many valid reasons for that, so much trauma that i could never understand. but i hope everyone can wake up and feel, see, or do some good today. you guys deserve it
first of all i want to say that background are AWESOME i lvoe it i love it the vids these days ARE so GOOD and the background in this vid i want it
its funny that matched was so bad bc ally condie can like actually write. receipts? summerlost. granted that book doesnt have any romance (and i think its technically middlegrade idk) but its like its one of my favourite healed my yr 6 soul after being scarred by the first 20 pages of matched its still good.
I could be wrong since I didn't actually do research on this. But didn't Hunger Games's inspiration partially come from the Japanese book/movie "Battle Royale"?
I think it came from the Greek Minotaur Myth where they would throw a group of children into the maze as a sacrifice where the Minotaur resides.
collins says she had never heard of battle royale before writing the first book but i doubt that, she never had to admit since her story got more popular but she didn’t create this concept at all, and i actually think none of these books would exist without battle royale
"Woah it's that kid from Journey to the Center of the Earth." "Woah he made it back" me: *snorts*
Hunger games has become so big and popular (for good reason, i love it) but no one talks about her other series, Gregor the overlander
The hunger games and the selection are so so good, the 100 was also alright.
Girrrrrrrl, I'm not lying, I was watching the new Hunger Games movie few days ago & I was like, what if, out of nowhere I decided to write a dystopian book then what would I write about. I actually, genuinely thought that probably I would write about a society where everyone is gay & being straight is illegal. But our main girl got some Divergent shit happening, so....she is bi. 🤣🤣I mean that is one of the dumbest dopest thing I've ever imagined. Also, Shout out to my South Asian girlies 🤍
Oh my God, I had similar idea sometime back 😭😭 We should def co-write this 🤭🤣
There is a 2 volume manga series and the plot is literally a meteor hit and made everyone gay and then you got MC and she isn't gay. She has a crush on her male best friend :O drama. Its fr such a silly plot.
Problem with that is you're going to have bigots thinking you're an ally portraying "what the world will come to" and "how the good people are oppressed by the freaks"
@@iimuffinsaurthat sounds so stupid I’m crying I love it. God bless the gay meteor.
@@iimuffinsaur this would be such an amazing comedy holy shit do you remember the name? is it as goofy as its plot deserves?
seeing you list all the dystopian books of the early 2010s reminded me of this one book/series?? called Bumped that I think you should read... basically a virus makes anyone over 18 infertile so teens get paid as surrogates and it follows these twins. I cant remember much of it but im curious of what your opinon is.
another book from that time that I loved was the adoration of jenna fox series which deals with genetic cloning 👀👀
I remember reading the maze runner for the first time and being borderline pissed off all the time because I hated Teresa. I was really interested in group B when they got introduced though but that was mainly just because Im a lesbian and very excited by the idea of never having to deal with guys like ever and just being able to hang out with a bunch of girls in a big maze.
I’m sorry this is so funny 😂 did you realize you were a lesbian?
Graphic designer here, totally agree with the fact that we need to make our lives easier, so you go girl.
thanks for all the book recommendations!
I am so glad I am not the only one who felt that way about Matched I have never regretted reading a book and then I read that series
recently, my cousin made me read shatter me. i actually laughed at how bad the writing was at times. 😂 i'm definitely not reading the rest of the series no matter how much my cousin tries to convince me.
i have to reread hunger games at some point. i was probably too young to fully appreciate it as a teen. maybe i can convince my cousin to read it as well.
Red Rising I feel improves on the hunger games format. Its starts establishing the government as needing to be taken down from the very beginning AND addresses the difficulties of restructuring an entire society in a very realistic way. The author himself stated that he made the first book like hunger games to get enough traction to write the story he really wanted to write and reeeaaaaallly delivered.
bro didn't even mention parkour civilization. i believe its far better then any other dystopia ever created
Glad to see the Gone books get some recognition. It sometimes feels like there's 0 public interest in them. Definitely was not suitable for 10 year old me, especially in the later books
choked on my spicy noodle broth bc i was NOT prepared for that ending
I’m making a YA Dystopia novel Right now!
didn't go into this expecting a reference to GONE... yes...
"Which basically means, they're drugg-" "for low prices, for fast shipping, there's chewy"
I am only commenting because the last line of the video made me stop at work and laugh out loud. I’m subbing because of it
Great video about all distopy novels 😍🤩🥰 I like you so much your energy
The people who loved the hunger games and now are backing the state controlling peoples movement - or the people who missed the race of all the characters in the book… like ???????
Anyway 🍉🍉🍉🍉
After reading the hunger games it’s hard to read much else better so when i read divergent i was so disappointed i just didn’t find it as re-readable and the movie adaptation missed some of my favourite parts not like the movie adaptation of the hunger games didnt but the difference is that i want to rewatch it and wanted to continue reading i don’t care as much for divergent becuase hunger games was so phenomenal and also the romance was so much better in the hunger games which hooked me.
This is completely off topic, but….okay, so you know how the song All Too Well was made into a book in the short film? I would LOVE to see you turn songs into book covers!! It’s just an idea. You’re so talented, and I love all your videos!! 😃🙌🏻
16:18 everyone agreed
Part of it might be that those that grew up with thg are now “millennials”, maybe they kind of grew out of the genre (i haven't fully finished watching your video so sorry if you mentioned that!) . But also as others mentioned younger audiences are being exposed to waaay more darker themes that are s3ggsual in nature (think “euphoria”) so expectations are different. Too many adults are in the sphere of YA who are pushing things that are, frankly, not YOUNG adult. Just adult. I'm about to have a kid of my own and the future terrifies me :(
I feel like the only reason a lot of these books are YA are because the characters are around that age and… that’s it. Maybe it’s something about the writing style as well
Kinda disappointed that you didn't talk about Red Rising, because out of all the ya dystopias ive seen Red Rising is by far the best. The First Hunger games was good but everything after it slowly gets worse. The Balad of Songbird and Snake was really good too.
Red Rising is the best book on this list, imho. When the author went to publish the first book, he was pushed by his editors to create something with a YA dystopian Hunger Games feel because that was what was popular at the time. However, it tricks you starting the second book and turns into an high-stakes space opera that is a glaring critique of the horrors of war. Sorry to the other books on this list, but Red Rising is just different
not enough appreciation in the comments for the journey to the center of the earth joke “….wow he made it back”
The selection review that you read was a joke comment if you didn’t catch that. They compared it to the bachelor (minus the bloodshed) right after that. It wasn’t meant to be serious about being like the hunger games.
GONE WAS TRAUMATAUSING OMG
the maze runner tagline mentioning hunger games 💀💀 WHYYY
1:53 that's not YA dystopian, that is Abject Horror
Help i love MATCHED, i feel ashamed of myself
I think the other best dystopian series other than the hunger games is the maze runner. Idk why, i just started to love it.
Can we get more Shrek romance, cause last video you made was very funny
"That already exists" it's almost like dystopian fiction is about taking something that exists in the real world and presenting in an exagerrated way in order to comment upon it. Sometimes badly.