Every YA Dystopian Novel Ever

Birthday Gruel

My name is Celestia Mary-Sue Queensly, and today is my 16th birthday. I stood in front of our old, greasy, cracked mirror and looked at my reflection.

I'm really thin, and average height for my village, since everyone's malnourished. I'd probably be considered short among the teenagers from the Golden City. 

I have jet black hair up to my shoulders and snowy skin, with pale blue eyes. My face is diamond shaped with thin, arching eyebrows, and small pink lips. The tips of my button nose are tinged red from the cold.

I sighed to myself, thinking about how hideously plain I look. I'm too thin, and my skin clings to my cheekbones, from the malnourishment. My eyes are too big, and my nose is too small. Oh well, I don't care that no guy could ever like me.

I put on the birthday dress that my poor, sick mother had laid out for me. 

It was a beautiful, icy blue gown with long sleeves and a full pleated skirt. It had two layers. The inner layer was cotton, and the outer layer was also cotton. The material was thick and warm and fit snugly over my petticoat. 

It had a round neck with a lacy, snowflake-y outline. There was a lot of white lacy embroidery on the dress. It formed a thick sash around my waist, and many beautiful snowflakes on the skirt. The snowflakes were sparsely decorated with a few sequins stitched on and around them. The torso and sleeves were much more minimalistic. They had some simple lace detailing with tiny snowflakes incorporated into the design. 

Such a simple description could not do justice to the dress. So here's three more paragraphs.

The dress had a super thin hemline, with stitches that were barely visible. They were probably made of cotton thread. The thread were a shade of sky blue, only slightly lighter than the dress material, but you couldn't notice it anyway because it's just a hemline. 

Along the backside of the dress were blue buttons. They were round in shape with four holes. There were five of them. The dress didn't actually need the buttons though, since it slipped right on. It seemed like a waste of money.

Each individual snowflake was actually six sided, which is an impressive attention to detail. They were perfectly symmetrical on all sides, as snowflakes always are. Each snowflake of the skirt had seven sequins. One in the center and one at each of its ends. On closer inspection, I realized most of the sequins were just pieces of glass sewed on super carefully. Which made sense, because no one even sells sequins in these parts.

I twirled and gasped as I watched the snowflakes spin around me. It reminded me of a snow globe. 

"You look beautiful," my mom said. I turned around and saw her thin, sickly figure standing at the door. Wow, I really should lock the door when I change. 

"Mom. It's beautiful," I said. "How did you afford this?"

She smiled. "I made it myself. I've been working on it everyday after work."

"But-"

"I want you to have nice things, dear. I know that we live in complete and utter poverty under an oppressive government. But when I see you in this dress, just for one moment, I can forget how miserable I always am, every second of the day."

She wiped away a tear. I walked up to her and gave her a hug.

"Thank you, mom," I whispered. 

We went down for some birthday breakfast of gruel, but with a little sugar on top. My favorite kind of gruel. I was touched and I slurped it down in seconds.

I've never been very dainty. I'm actually really clumsy and awkward. Maybe this year I'll finally grow out of it.

My older sisters came down the stairs of our two story, tiny little shed. We live here with two other families. Most of them go out for work early in the morning so we hardly see each other. The young children stay behind longer, as their work starts later, but even they were gone by now.

My oldest sister, Harmony, is 25. She looks just like me, but older and way prettier. She is widowed, and has a 4 year old baby girl named Hope. Hope is the sweetest angel in the world, and I will see it to my end that nothing bad happens to her. Ever. Like, there is no way that is going to happen.

Although, everyone in our class is supposed to spend their lives in service from the day they turn eight, women are allowed maternal leave until their kids are 5. Many women choose to go to work anyway to make ends meet, but Harmony has us to support her.

Iridessa is my other older sister. She also looks like me, but prettier. She's 22, but acts like she's 80 or something. Iridessa is always telling me what to do, but I never see her do a thing around the house. She's home today because she came down with a stomach bug a couple days ago and neglected to tell her supervisor about her recovery.

Harmony and Iridessa both wished me a happy birthday, kissed my cheek, and sat down for some gruel. Hope came up to me with a big smile.

"Happy Birthday, Aunt Tia!" she shouted.

I smiled and gave her a big hug.

"Thank you, Hope!"

"Today is the day of the ceremony, right?" she asked.

I answered, "That's right, Hope. Today is my 16th birthday. Which means I don't have to work today. Instead, I get to go to the Sanctorum, where I'll get to meet the High Judge of our sector. And then my life will be decided by the algorithm."

"Good luck, Tia!" Harmony wished me.

"Why do you need luck?" Hope asked.

"I don't," I reassured her. "Just like it is 99 percent of the time, I'm going to get the same path as the rest of my family; sweeping floors in the bowels of society. Hopefully, they give me a good-looking fiancee."

"They won't send you away or anything?" Hope asked.

"Not a chance," I said. "I could never leave you guys. Never ever. Not in a million, trillion, bajillion years. It will never happen."

My mother cleared her throat.

"Tia. I think it's time for you to go," she said.

I looked around my kitchen, at my happy, little family, safe and content with the little we had, eating gruel without a care. As long as we had each other, everything would be fine.

Something had crept into my mind. It resembled fear, but I couldn't be sure. Pushing it back, I stood up from the table and waved goodbye to my sisters.

Hello readers! Congratulations for reading the first chapter of this book! It's a really long and confusing title to abbreviate (though not as much as HSMTMTS), so I'll be referring to it as DYS in these little author notes.

Anyhoo, this is a parody of YA Dystopias, but I don't actually hate them! Example: I think the Hunger Games is a fantastic series with a lot to say about humanity. I'm just poking fun at some of the overdone/cliche aspects of dystopias.

Thank y'all so much for reading!