The author, Paolo Bacigalupi, believes that most teens have a rather high interest in the dystopian books because they are unsettled about their own future. He claims that adolescents seek a different version of their future reality because they know that deep down, their future isn’t as secure as their parents. With all the technology that has been invented in the last several years, the parents who are of this generation are handing down only destruction and human isolation to their children. The age of now craves the truth and nothing else so they pursue what, in their mind, is the true form of their actuality. Parents of this generation rather hide the truth of the world than tell their children what is happening in the world so the only way that kids can uncover those truths, is to read another version of it in these type of storybooks.

I do not agree or disagree with the author because I’ve never seen it from that point of view before, however neither can I deny its merit. Bacigalupi has an interesting concept and I can almost see why he would think that but as a young adult myself, I can’t agree wholeheartedly because I have never felt that way. I do not read those type of books because I believe them to have truth to it; I read it merely for pleasure as I would for any book of fiction. With that said, I can’t speak for the rest of the audience but I find it likely.

I think the author’s commentary can be related to The Giver on various levels. For one thing, the main character in The Giver wants to find the whole truth, even though it was hard for him to hear it, similar to what Bacigalupi thinks of the present mindset of this generation adolescents. In the article, Bacigalupi speaks of adults hiding the truth from their children the same way Jonas’s father hides the truth of how he “releases” the children. Both authors seem to understand the theme behind the dystopian novels.