Dystopian fiction is an undeniably hot topic in YA literature, and lots of people seem preoccupied with figuring out why. Publisher's Weekly has a new article, Apocalypse Now that does the best job I've seen so far, talking to teens, publishing insiders, and retailers to find out why they think dystopian fiction is so popular.
The article also includes several upcoming titles that I hadn't heard of before, and now I absolutely can't wait for. Aside from last week's announcement of Mockingjay to complete the Hunger Games series (or as I now like to call them, "the books that creep out my mom"), I'm looking forward to This World We Live In by Susan Beth Pfeffer (conclusion to the trilogy that began with Life as We Knew It and publishes in April), The Unidentified by Rae Mariz (teens go to school in a shopping mall where corporate sponsors watch them on video) and Nomansland by Lesley Hauge (comes out in June, teenage girls are defending their island from men, who are the enemies) are some of the ones that jumped out at me from the article. Looking for a comprehensive list of recent and upcoming dystopian YA? Publisher's Weekly also helpfully includes a list of titles with short annotations. My TBR spreadsheet just gained a whole bunch of titles. I did just knock off one dystopian title though; I finished Catherine Fisher's Incarceron last night - some excellent dystopian sf/fantasy there!
