Are Young Adult Dystopian Novels Coming Back?

Hey friends! Welcome back to the Loose Leaf List. Like many readers of my age, I was obsessed with the teen dystopian book trend in the early 2010s. I devoured everything from The Hunger Games to Divergent to Uglies. But the YA dystopian bubble burst around 2015 or so, and since then, publishing hasn’t touched the genre with a ten-foot pole …

… Until now. Because a trickle of books from major publishers are being marketed as dystopian again. The Dividing Sky by Jill Tew, Fledgling by S.K. Ali, and Snowglobe by Soyoung Park are the biggest examples from this year, with more slated to come next year such as Chloe Gong’s Coldwire and Ava Reid’s Fable for the End of the World.

So is the trend well and truly back? Or is there more to it? I was determined to find out. And because I love you all for subscribing to this newsletter, you get to learn what I discovered before anyone else!

Watch the Video!

Here is an unlisted link to my YouTube video all about the return of YA dystopian novels! The video will go public on Friday, but for now, only you get to see it. I had a lot of fun making this, and I hope you have fun watching it too!

Part of the video includes clips from a live stream I did with Jill Tew, the author of The Dividing Sky, who shared some wonderful insights into the YA dystopian genre and what The Dividing Sky brings to the table. Unfortunately, I had to cut a lot of great stuff in the edit, so you can watch our full conversation here:

Do you enjoy YA dystopian novels? What are some of your favorites? Share in the comments!

What I Read This Month

Keeping with the YA dystopian theme, I discovered a new dystopian favorite this month! (And yes, it does feature in this month’s YouTube video.)

Fledgling by S.K. Ali

This book is about a divided world, where the citizens of the floating island of Upper Earth live in high-tech luxury and the citizens of Lower Earth scrape by to survive. A marriage between an Upper Earth princess and a Lower Earth prince promises to unite the world in peace, but this promised peace isn’t what it seems …

Fledgling weaves an intricate world full of sinister technology, secrets, and conflicting narratives. I was blown away, and I cannot wait for the sequel! For more thoughts, read my full review of Fledgling on Storygraph.

In Case You Missed It …

In which I round up my other favorite fun posts that I made this past month!

First, and most importantly, I teamed up with some of my favorite bookish creators — @RaeTheReviewer, @TomesAndTextiles, and @ReadsWithRachel — to create a guide to local school board elections on Instagram! If you’re a voter in the U.S. this coming election, be sure to pay attention to your school board races and vote for candidates who oppose book bans:

Also on Instagram, I teamed up with another bookish bestie, @BookishBasma, to do a book rec-off! We covered a lot of our favorite genres, and I like to think we both have pretty great taste (but you can decide who won by commenting).

Over on TikTok, I complained about terrible streaming service subtitles, and how inaccurate subtitles have made people misunderstand important scenes in my favorite show, Doctor Who:

@looseleafellie

If we’re writing fanfic in the Doctor Who streaming subtitles now, couldn’t they at least have made the Tenth Doctor tell Rose Tyler he lo... See more

On Instagram and TikTok, I aimed to get to the bottom of something that’s been baffling me for a while: Why do so many people who love fantasy books hate science fiction when the genres have so much in common? I loved reading the discussions in the comments, plus all the great book recs that people shared!

And finally, on Instagram and TikTok, I discussed statistics about print vs ebook reading habits, and how print books are still most people’s favorite format despite the fearmongering about ebooks replacing them:

Thank you so much for reading! Until next time, bookish friends.

Love,

Ellie