In 1817 Samuel Taylor Coleridge noted that if an author put a “human interest and a semblance of truth”  (Biographia Literaria, published in 1817) into a work of fantasy then people could suspend their disbelief about the outrageous elements of the story and really come to connect with it.  As a reader of fantasy I have come to believe that this “suspension of disbelief” is essential to a good fantasy or science fiction novel.   No matter the genre it is the authors job to create a credible world that has a semblance of truth in it so that readers can suspend disbelief and find themselves lost in the imaginary world.  We have seen a lot of young adult dystopian novels lately and I have found that some of them do a better job of helping the reader suspend disbelief than others   Fundamental to their job, authors must create a truly powerful dystopian world and to do this they must make you believe that the power and control of the world is entirely credible.  They must formulate  their futuristic outcomes in “a semblance of truth”  that is based in current conditions and then takes those conditions to a logical yet scary conclusion.  I have come to see that the best dystopian novels do this very simply.  In the best books the author takes current conditions only from point A to point B in a very logical way.  In these books a simple catastrophe happens, power is centralized and the society reacts as expected.  There is nothing complex here it is logical and simple.  For example in the highly popular and outstanding Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins, there is a major war, power is centralized to the Capitol, people don’t want this to happen again so they control everyone though the Hunger Games.  Simple.  This is the kind of world we can work with.

Also in the recently published book Bumped by Megan McCafferty (Balzer+Bray, 2011), we have a simple premise.  A virus has made it impossible for anyone but teenagers to get pregnant, in a capitalist society power is centralized to those with money, so the ability to give birth becomes a commodity to be sold.  Simple.  McCafferty does a great job with this scenario, using made up slang effectively to build the world and then adding in unique characters who embody two different perspectives of how the world could be seen that then give the reader a full picture of how scary this kind of world could be.   It is these kinds of simple scenarios that make really powerful dyptopic worlds.

On the other hand when you get complicated things just don’t work.  I’ve already reviewed, Awaken by Katie Kacvinsky (http://wonderreader.edublogs.org/2011/04/30/awaken-by-katie-kacvinsky/)  and outlined the problems this book has with complexity.

Another debut book The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher (Sourcebooks, 2011) in my mind has similar problems.  The premise is simple, all or almost all the drinking water has been eliminated from the earth.  So then we need a power shift, and this is where it gets complicated.  In the book some of the power lies with the government who ration water and who have some kind of secretive scheme  that is keeping water from the people.  Then we bring in a large corporation who has built technology to make sea water drinkable who has some kind of unnamed control over the world’s water.  Then we have pirates, diviners and scientists who all play some kind of role in this.  It is never clear where the power lies, or why that group has the power.  Is it money? Is it control?  We never know.  Combined with that we also don’t have a concrete scientific explanation as to why the water disappeared in the first place.  There are references to storms and to the ice cap melting but all in all it is very vague as to how this all could happen in the first place.  Stracher’s world is very scary to contemplate, but her complexity and lack of clear explanation make it really hard to see this vision of the future clearly.  Sadly after you add in a complex explanation the characters and themes just get lost and the book falls flat.  So it seems to me that when it comes to dystopia’s simple is best.

Back in the day when I was a teen myself, one of my favorite books that I read over and over was And Both Were Young By Madeline L’Engle.  In fact my copy is was so tattered and falling apart from loving reading that I was ecstatic when they republished it in hardcover in April 2010.  While I promptly bought several copies, I still have my old well loved one as well.  This book appealed to me with just the right strongly realized and exotic setting in addition to the character who feels out of place but then comes to find her sense of being.  I also love the sweet romance with two people who would never have met finding each other.

Recently I read the first novel of Stephanie Perkins called Anna and the French Kiss.  As I read I could only be reminded of my old favorite And Both Were Young.   With its European setting and strong characters rolled up in just the right romance, I know that this book would have held the same fascination for me as a teen as did L’Engle.  Perkins work is just delightful and has all the right elements for modern readers.  Because of the setting with a different legal standard and contemporary time period it is a little more edgy than And Both Were Young, but overall it is very mild and accessible for an upper young adult audience. Anna and the French Kiss is certainly one of those novels that made me feel like a teen again.  I’m positive that teens will fall for Anna and Étienne, just as I did.  I’m eagerly waiting for Perkins next offering coming in September, but if you need something else before then try my old favorite And Both Were Young.