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Publication: The Urban Wire, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore.
What is it about The Hunger Games and The 5th Wave franchises that makes everyone scream for more?
By Kimberly Lim
The hunger games novels written by Suzanne Colins is a big hit with young adults across the world.
Pour a good dose of teen spirit, rebellion and heroics into a dystopian world and throw in a dash of evil dictators, governments or aliens. Season the concoction with a steamy love triangle, a theme of self-discovery and a tasteful amount of character deaths.
Voila! You have the recipe of a stereotypical successful young adult novel targeted at 13 to 18-year-olds. Despite the similarities in many of these stories, Blooming Twig discovered that the YA and children's publishing industry had a net revenue of US$2.87 billion (S$3.91 billion) last year, with adults over the age of 18 contributing to 55% of book sales.
YA novels were initially labelled as silly teenage books but have become one of the most popular genres among people of all ages. There are key features of YA that have got readers from all walks of life gaga over the genre.
Strong Female Protagonists
Traditionally, superheroes are men in masks and dark capes but in the world of YA fiction where anything and everything is possible, the Geena Davis Institute found that 65% of the genre's protagonists are young women.
In recent young adult fiction titles, main characters are mostly female, portraying them as...