Popmatters...

...on dystopias.

A lot of the essay is well-known to big YA readers (like, probably, you) but about halfway through, she says this, which I thought was really cool:

It’s possible YA shelves act as a sort of magic 8 ball for the rest of the literary scene because they are so unbiased. Few bookstores break their YA sections into defined genre shelving. Sure, there are series shelves, and some very broad genre shelving, usually associated with age breakdown. Beyond these, though, most YA books are shelved in alphabetical order. Magic realism lives next to humor, which cuddles up to romance, which nudges sword and sorcery. Most teens, too, are open about their reading choices—when was the last time you heard a teenager claim they prefer Jack Q. McWriterson’s less mainstream, more critical earlier work?

It's worth a read.