You can’t go anywhere these days without seeing Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series or Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, who star in the film adaptation. But while the movie series is just getting started (the first sequel, New Moon, comes out this November), the book franchise was completed last summer with the release of Breaking Dawn. For readers, Bella and Edward’s story has officially ended, and the pair are free to spend eternity in the happily ever after. Perhaps because of the popular series’ end, the paranormal craze that Twilight inspired is finally showing signs of wear. This doesn’t mean that the world is sick of vampires, ghosts and werewolves, but the stream of copycat fiction is starting to dry up, leaving the door open for the next big trend in teen literature.
But where does YA fiction go from vampires and werewolves and the young women who love them? The answer may be zombies.
On the surface, Carrie Ryan’s 2009 debut novel, The Forest of Hands and Teeth, exhibits similar elements to the paranormal teen books. In Forest, Ryan examines a post-apocalyptic world in which zombies roam the earth and humans live in gated, isolated villages. As in many paranormal teen series, the novel centers on a young teenage girl who feels out of place in her small community. But while YA writers encourage their protagonists to become a part of these new, “other” worlds, Forest keeps the zombies at a sharp distance. Ryan’s zombies are something to be feared, not lusted after. The “other” that she creates is one that her main character, Mary, must try to escape in order to survive. Mary is no Bella – instead of letting love drive her, she is spurred on by a curiosity to better understand the world around her. And instead of letting men save her, she kicks major zombie ass on her own. Ryan’s series (two more books are planned) is about trying to define humanity in a world that has evolved into something horrifically different from the one we know. This makes Forest less like another paranormal YA novel and more in the tradition of dystopian literature.
There are many dystopian novels: Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, about a man trying to lead his son to the ocean in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, shows us a dystopian world with no sense of order; Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, about a totalitarian government that controls even the sexuality of its citizens, is an example of a world with too much order and therefore little freedom. Ryan’s novel lies somewhere in between—her characters are living in the aftermath of apocalypse, but disorder still exists in the form of zombies that claw at the fences surrounding the village. Society’s response is to employ rigid control; Mary’s village is run by a strict religious order called the Sisterhood. She longs to break out of her controlled community, even as the world around her devolves into chaos.
But Forest is not the lone dystopian novel in a sea of vampire love stories. Other YA writers have recently tackled the concept of dystopia as well, perhaps most notably Suzanne Collins in The Hunger Games. In this 2008 novel, Collins explores a dystopian society where people live in impoverished districts, run by a corrupt Capitol. Once a year, each district is forced to send two teens to the Hunger Games, a televised event where teens must battle one another to the death. The final teen left standing is promised wealth, food, and glory. Like Forest, The Hunger Games centers on a strong female protagonist, who is perfectly capable of surviving on her own—something that serves her well as she battles for her life in the Games.
Similar to most vampire/werewolf teen series, these books have been marketed toward teen girls and both have love stories that help anchor their plots (though here the love story isn’t the main plot, as it is in novels like Twilight). The strong female characters in both Forest and Games exhibit a refreshing shift away from the often love-struck female leads encountered in books like Twilight. It is reassuring to see how strong the reader response has been to this rising trend of dystopian literature. Though the novels are darker and deal with more adult themes than most paranormal series, they’ve both sold well, with The Hunger Games appearing on the NY Times Bestseller’s List.
Dystopian YA novels are nothing new. Most of us remember Lois Lowry’s 1993 novel The Giver, about a young boy who discovers how flawed his world is when he must be the sole carrier of society’s memories. More recently, Scott Westerfeld revived the genre with his popular 2005 series, Uglies, in which every 16 year old must be made “pretty” in order to be a part of society. But the 2008-2009 success of both The Hunger Games and The Forest of Hands and Teeth suggest that dystopian teen literature is gaining new popularity – and is perhaps poised to take the place of vampire teen series in the publishing world. Both Collins and Ryan have sequels coming out this year (Collin’s Catching Fire was released on September 1st and Ryan’s The Dead-Tossed Waves is scheduled to come out in Spring 2010). And both authors have recently sold rights to movie studios, with films already in the works. Will these movies have the same draw as Twilight? It may prove difficult since these series rely on the survival power of their female leads instead of broodingly handsome heroes. But if the movie versions stay true to capturing Forest and Games’ dystopian landscapes, viewers will be captivated by the action packed stories, the strong characters, and the eerily beautiful imagery. We’ll just have to wait and see if the world is ready for a little less vampire and a little more post-apocalypse.
Rachel Carter
Rachel Carter grew up in Vermont and attended the University of Vermont, where she studied English and Women’s Studies. She also has an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from Columbia University, and her nonfiction has appeared in Girl Zone magazine. She ...
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Carrie Ryan, Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Stephenie Meyer, Suzanne Collins, The Forest of Hands and Teeth, The Hunger Games, Twilight
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