Under the Never Sky

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a dystopia as “an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives” (“Dystopia.” Merriam-Webster). Dystopian YA follows the same structure. A protagonist lives their whole life thinking their society is “normal,” then at a certain age realizes something is off with the world they live in and that maybe it isn’t as perfect as it had seemed. At around this time, they meet someone, potentially fall in love, and lead a revolution.

While the dystopian genre has a long past, going back as far as the late 1800s to early 1900s, Lois Lowry’s The Giver (1994) brought a new wave of dystopian literature to younger audiences. Dystopian remained primarily for adults until Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games (2008), which remained on the New York Times bestseller list for over five years and changed the genre forever. The Dystopian genre took the world by storm in the early 2010s with the emergence of series following The Hunger Games’ success, such as The Maze Runner (2009), Matched (2010), Legend (2011), Divergent (2012), and Arc of a Scythe (2016).

Much of the genre’s appeal comes from its ability to balance the imaginations of the fantastical with the real, relevant problems facing modern society. Based on the era of dystopian, certain literature can highlight its time’s anxieties about capitalism, imperialism, wealth and power inequality, technology, government restriction and control, and social or environmental concerns. Loss of individuality is another large theme in dystopian literature. The genre is used to highlight important themes, raise awareness, and provoke discussions about certain issues.

Young adult dystopian fiction takes the aspirations of dystopian works and melds them with those of YA literature, employing themes of self-discovery and romance. This mixture of elements allows younger audiences to engage with complex themes and also easily see themselves in the characters.

Post-apocalyptic is a closely related genre to dystopian. Where dystopia still has functioning societies, post-apocalyptic worlds take place after a world or society has already suffered a complete collapse. There’s a large overlap here—just as Under the Never Sky can be considered both post-apocalyptic (the Aether catastrophe) and dystopian (functioning Tribe and Pod societies), so can Divergent and The Maze Runner. The blurring between science fiction, dystopias, and post-apocalyptic literature is common.