Yesterday, as promised, the UPS guy delivered my copy of Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins’ highly-anticipated final installment of the wildly-popular Hunger Games trilogy. I was too busy last night recapping that damned Real Housewives of New Jersey (which is clearly a sign that the end is nigh, amirite?), so I only read a few chapters before bedtime. I am slightly obsessed with young adult books written about or after apocalyptic events. Post-America speculation, FTW. It’s cool. I’m a former English teacher. It’s professional research. But if you’re amenable to reading young adult series without judgment, The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay is one of the best I’ve read. Yeah, I read. I read a lot. What, you think this genius comes from watching every episode of Intervention? Sorry, Jeff VanVonderen, I think not.
Why do I like these types of books? First, I’m fascinated by how others envision after the fall of the American empire, which is usually the basis for these types of books. Second, they almost always have compelling characters, often strong, female protagonists in books not geared specifically towards girls, which is refreshing. I love ass-kicking girls so hard, and these books usually have them. Finishing Mockingjay will inevitably lead me to the empty feeling that my time with a group of kickass characters is done, and I’ll look for the next post-apocalyptic young adult book to keep my interest. If you’re in the same boat, check out a few series I’ve read that you may have missed.
- The most widely-known of books in this genre would probably be Lois Lowry’s The Giver, Gathering Blue, and Messenger. The first, The Giver, is set in a seeming utopia, where all people have a role and are cared for. Jonas turns twelve and is given his assigned job, that of the Receiver of Memory. It is during his training that he realizes that his community is far from the utopia he thought it to be. Gathering Blue takes place in the same world, but in a different community that hasn’t fared as well and is not unlike the Middle Ages, and Messenger brings the two worlds together. Lowry is regarded as a master of literature for children and young adults, and The Giver is widely taught in schools.
- Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series was intended to be a trilogy, but continued to a fourth book after the first three sold so well. Set in a future where technology can eliminate undesirably physical traits, Tally Youngblood is an “ugly”, a teen who has yet to go through her beautification process. She realizes there is life outside of the “pretties” parties and hedonism, and must choose whether to mindlessly submit to a life of frivolity or embrace her rebellious nature and seek the underground world known as The Smoke. The series continues with Pretties, Specials, and Extras. These books is great if you think technology+vanity=lethal combination.
- The Last Survivors series, by Susan Beth Pfeiffer, is the most realistic–and most terrifying–series I’ve read. The first book, Life As We Knew It, is set in the not-very-distant future, Miranda is a normal teenager living in rural New England when a meteor hits the moon, knocking it off its axis. This sets into motion catastrophic natural disasters, and supplies wane as survivors struggle to live through the winter. The second installment, The Dead and the Gone, follows a teen boy, Alex during the same time, but stuck in Manhattan, which ends up being a much bleaker setting for environmental doom. The third book, This World We Live In, in which Miranda and Alex’s world’s merge gives The Road a run for it’s money in terms of sucking-your-soul dry. So yeah, totes read it, dudes.
- While not a young adult book, Parable of the Sower, a post-apocalyptic novel for adults by the incomparable Octavia Butler, fits nicely alongside the other series I’ve already named. Butler is a female, African-American sci-fi writer whose work is so engrossing that her book Kindred will hook even the most reluctant high school reader. I know, because both my husband and I have taught that book in our classrooms and teenagers LOVE it. ANYWAY, we’re talking about Parable of the Sower, which follows a teenage Lauren Olamina, who in 2025 is biding her time in a gated community as California crumbles around her. Her family tries to survive the impending doom of the violence outside their walls, while Lauren prepares to lead what she believes will be a new religion. Butler followed Sower up with Parable of the Talents, which was supposed to be followed by a third installment, completing the trilogy. However, Butler suffered a bout of writer’s block and died before she could finish the series. I wept, but both existing books are well worth your time if you dig this genre.
So, yeah, if you want to escape the doom and gloom of our current global situation, why not escape to a fictional-yet-plausible world created entirely to make you speculate about how shit might go down and how incredibly messed up it will be? You’ll be tentatively reassured that the little children will lead us out of the mire, and it’s sure as shit more redeeming than watching yet another episode of Toddlers and Tiaras.
Don’t forget to enter MamaPop’s contest to win a copy of Mockingjay AND a limited-edition iPod Touch. You know you want to.
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K Best Oliver is actively planning for the apocalypse. You can join her commune if you’re down.
