ABSTRACT
Young adult dystopias usually pit the teenager against the adult world. However, M.T. Anderson's Feed (2002), Julie Bertagna's Exodus trilogy (2002–2011), and Scott Westerfeld's Uglies trilogy (2005–2007) implicate teenagers in environmental doom. 1 These authors define young adult culture in terms of two of the culprits of our ecological problems: technology and consumerism. To challenge adolescent readers, they present them with two kinds of utopia. The technological utopia echoes youth culture with its love for technology, consumption, and distraction, whereas the ecological utopia promotes maturity with its emphasis on self-reliance, self-restraint, hard work, decision-making, and community. The technological utopia favors mediated experience—even replacing nature in the process—whereas the ecological utopia promotes unmediated experience with real consequences.
