Picture this: it’s 2013 and you’re eagerly awaiting the release of Catching Fire in theaters. The Hunger Games was a huge hit the year before, and your friends are fighting about whether they’re Team Gale or Team Peeta for the millionth time (obviously, Team Peeta is correct, people are just distracted by Liam Hemsworth being hot). Divergent will be releasing in theaters next year, and you’re all just hoping it isn’t as bad as the Percy Jackson adaptation was. Life is good.

If you’re like me and achieved peak happiness, peak followers (my Instagram fan edits were unrivaled) and peak obsession in the years between 2011-2014, I have great news for you. That era is making a comeback in a big way. So many dystopian YA series are being adapted for the screen over the course of the next year, and I can’t wait. Just in case you hadn’t heard, here’s all of your required reading to keep up with before it hits theaters streaming services.

Percy Jackson

  • Author: Rick Riordan
  • Book Release Date: 2005
  • Adaption Release Date: probably 2023
  • Format: TV Show
  • Platform: Disney+

Arguably the most popular of all of the adaptions coming soon is Percy Jackson and the Olympians. As previously mentioned, the movie adaptation was devastatingly bad. For all of you that are too young to remember, Rick Riordan’s series had the potential to be one of the most popular book-to-movie series of all times, and then the absolutely horrible execution caused it to flop. I would say I’m hoping that this TV show will be better, but honestly it couldn’t be worse.

I’m excited enough to watch this series that I am considering getting Disney+ just to watch it. The casting is a great choice, and I know that they’re going to do justice to the book characters this time around.

Ninth House

  • Author: Leigh Bardugo
  • Book Release Date: 2019
  • Adaption Release Date: tbd
  • Format: TV Show
  • Platform: Amazon

Leigh Bardugo is the YA Fantasy writer of our current era. Her books have been taking the world by storm over recent years, with this being the second tv show adaptation her series’ have received (Shadow and Bone came to Netflix last year). I admittedly have yet to read a single book that Bardugo has published. Six of Crows had been at the top of my list but after hearing that Ninth House might get an adaptation, things may have shifted.

I am super excited for Bardugo, and glad to see that there’s still series being created that people are excited enough about to adapt.

A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

  • Author: Suzanne Collins
  • Book Release Date: 2020
  • Adaption Release Date: November 17th, 2023
  • Format: Movie
  • Platform: in Theaters

I’m a Hunger Games girl to my core, so this is obviously the adaption that I’m most excited about. A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is the Hunger Games sequel that follows President Snow’s early life. The book was a fairly neutral experience (I only gave it three stars) and lacked a great deal of the charm of the original series, but I am still DESPERATE to watch this movie. It will be directed by Francis Lawrence, who also directed Catching Fire and Mockingjay, so I’m expecting it to stay true to the original spirit of the franchise.

Vampire Academy

  • Author: Richelle Mead
  • Book Release Date: 2007
  • Adaption Release Date: 2022
  • Format: TV Show
  • Platform: Peacock

If there’s one series that never truly got its due, it’s Vampire Academy. Mead crafted such a rich world with just the right amount of romance, action, and boarding-school-that-i-want-to-attend. It should have achieved, at the very least, Divergent levels of fame, but for some reason it never seemed to quite get there. Vampire Academy had been adapted for TV Show once before already, but they’re clearly trying to capitalize on the dystopian boom and try again.

They Both Die at the End

  • Author: Adam Silvera
  • Book Release Date: 2017
  • Adaption Release Date: tbd
  • Format: TV Show
  • Platform: tbd

I’m not sure if this counts as a YA Dystopian resurgence, but it is fundamentally a YA futuristic fantasy novel, so it felt close enough. They Both Die at the End was picked up for adaption once before and it ended up falling through, but I have high hopes that they’ll succeed this time around. The Bridgerton showrunner has decided to take a stab at this (much different) but similarly fated romantic storyline, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

Red Queen

  • Author: Victoria Aveyard
  • Book Release Date: 2015
  • Adaption Release Date: tbd
  • Format: TV Show
  • Platform: Peacock

I have only read the first installment of this series, but I absolutely adored it and will read the rest of it if it actually ends up airing on Peacock. Victoria Aveyard’s adaption of Red Queen has been in the works for years, and although she has assured fans that it’s actually happening, the whole thing seems a bit caught in limbo at the moment. Elizabeth Banks is heading the adaption, which is VERY COOL because I think Banks is VERY COOL. This series was quintessential YA Dystopia, but it came out at the very end of the boom, allowing it to launch Aveyard’s career and then fall flat before it received the full trilogy adaption treatment.

I am someone that prefers shows to movies, and I think Red Queen will make a great TV Show adaption.

The Selection

  • Author: Kiera Cass
  • Book Release Date: 2012
  • Adaption Release Date: tbd
  • Format: Movie
  • Platform: Netflix

I have to admit, the entire time I was adding this to the list, I thought they were talking about Matched, by Allie Condie. While Matched was a series made for the anxiety girlies, I don’t have much of a clue what The Selection is about. It appears that it has been in a sort of limbo for a while, and given that Netflix has been struggling, including firing many of their writers, it doesn’t appear that this one is going to emerge from purgatory any time soon. On the other hand, maybe this is just what they need to reenergize the platform and attract an audience that has been waiting for this for the past decade.

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