I intended to read The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness for my second YA book review, but it failed Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50 for me. At the same time, it provoked an important personal reflection:
I really cannot stand dystopian YA literature. It's one of the reasons I never read much YA, because what was presented in school was generally about dystopias, and then we would have to have really tedious, contrived discussions about it. I'm thinking of Lois Lowry's The Giver, and John Wyndham's The Chrysalids. It even continued into high school, having to read Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale in grade 10 English. Maybe I could have enjoyed these books if they weren't taught in school, but as it stands, I am still put off by these types of themes. Blinded by my own personal bias, I find it difficult to understand the appeal factors of these books for teens.
Anyway, I returned The Knife of Never Letting Go to the library, in hopes it will find a more appreciative reader. Not surprisingly, Stephenie Meyer's The Host is still sitting unfinished on my bookshelf, waiting for someone to read it. Let me know if you'd like to borrow it.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Dystopias in YA
Posted by Anne at 1:42 PM
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4 comments:
I completely relate to your perspective on YA dystopias: Women on the Edge of Time has a lot to answer for in my reading history! But all that changed for me when I read Meg Rosoff's How I Live Now...
Oh my goodness I love post apocalyptic fiction and distopias and all that crazy funky stuff ... and I cannot WAIT for the second book in the series - a book that is SOMEWHERE IN MY LIBRARY BEING CATALOGUED AS WE SPEAK but which has YET TO FIND IT'S WAY INTO MY HANDS and that is a tragedy.
A TRAGEDY!
(which is to say - every book it's reader, every reader his or her book! (: )
I loved the Handmaid's Tale, and wrote a chapter of my thesis on it, but I have to say I probably wouldn't have felt the same way about it in high school - although it wasn't in our curriculum.
I definitely wouldn't classify it as a YA book at all - it's about a woman who is clearly not a young adult, and there are no real issues that pertain specifically to YA's. Her only real YA-ish book is Cat's Eye. I guess you all were made to read the Handmaid's Tale because of its literary value (THAT I can stand behind), and the fact that it's Canlit.
I think I am the lone fan of Atwood in our whole class.. haha
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