Why Do Teens Have An Interest In Reading Dystopian Fiction?

What is causing teens to have an interest in reading about a protagonist and their heroic journey? Today's young adults often have an interest in reading dystopian literature. But why? Here’s a few reasons of why they might enjoy this specific genre of literature.

For one, teens can often relate to dystopian fiction. In the passage “Breaking Down the ‘System’” it states “The system is asking a lot from teens and not giving them much respect in return so it’s no wonder that stories about that system exploding, breaking down under it’s own contradictions, or simply being overrun by zombies are also beloved of teenagers”. This quote is explaining how the “system” is not showing respect to teens like how in dystopian fiction there is not much respect shown to the characters by the higher authorities. This is how teens can relate to these books because they understand how the characters in the book get no respect from the higher authorities. The same passage has also stated
They are aware that the world is falling apart but reading about someone else’s world falling apart takes their mind off their own world. “Perhaps the dystopian stories of today are darker because of all of us, writers and readers alike, have become more aware of the many awful things that happen in our world.” As our world falls apart even more, writers must make their stories darker to make our world not seem the bad. Reading about someone’s life and journey through an awful world makes us not think about how awful our own world really is. “It’s one of the ways we can put the events of our own life into perspective”. It truly does. It makes us think about how our world could be so much worse than it is. We could be sent off to fight until the death like in “The Hunger Games”. There is just so much more that could be wrong with our world that it makes the reader really think about what could be happening in the real