One of the biggest failures of dystopian novels is exactly that; their world building. There's almost never enough development of this new world; there ends up to be so many things glossed over and or unexplained. Take The Hunger Games, for example...I know, it's a sensitive topic. I know a lot of Battle Royale fans out there feel cheated; bear with me, we're discussing Hunger Games right now. In theory it was a pretty great idea (maybe not 100% original, but hey, whatever, I could have dealt with that). There were just so many things unexplained! Okay, so Panem exists...why?! We know it's a successor, in part, to the ancient US of A, but why? Okay so it's in the Rocky Mountains...does the rest of this land mass just not exist anymore? What led to the setup of this totalitarian government. With The Giver (classic), we know that the power of the gov was willing given because people felt that color and emotions led to too many bad things...so there's an explanation. Panem sort of just pops out of nowhere. Forget the rest of the American continent...where was the rest of the global population?! Is panem the only human population in existence now? I won't get into too many other details, but I hope you get what I mean. I definitely didn't hate the Hunger Games...I enjoyed 1 and 2 (definitely not Mockingjay...but that's a whole 'nother story). It's just...there were so many questions and loose ends. It was ok, but definitely not the best that it could have been.
Onto the topic of characters. Characters...well that's just a loaded topic. For me, I feel like most characters are either just too unrelatable and 2D, or completely useless and 2D. Forgive my harsh words. I'm sure many of you may feel differently. Going back to the Hunger Games example, I suppose. Katniss. She had almost no character development. She started out paranoid, a bit cold (totally understandable...a result of her situation and the circumstances, I get that), unsympathetic, and brutally down-to-earth in the most painful way possible. All that is fine. But you'd think, after life-threatening trauma (twice!), she'd maybe change a bit, or grow harder. She continues to be paranoid, I suppose a greater degree of paranoia, a bit cold, unsympathetic (yes, even more so), etc. It's just, she wasn't totally unrelatable, but she just fell flat. So so flat. Gale...well Gale has like one mode of operation, so let's not even get into that. I'd have to say, out of all the characters, Haymitch felt the most real. Peeta was likable. Whatever.
Let's talk Divergent. First off, I have read the books (to all of Hunger Games too, if that wasn't clear), so no this is not based purely off the movie (which really wasn't so bad). Again, I definitely didn't hate the books. But I definitely prefered Four over Tris. Yeah, I still rooted for Tris because she's a likable enough protagonist, but it felt like she didn't have much depth. We do know her insecurities, and her "flaws" but I felt like she was just too perfect. She's noble, self-sacrificing, merciful (in a general sense), loyal, moral, anything and everything you'd want a hero to be. Four was beautifully done though. He had his blacker parts of morality, a bit of a harder view of life, he was perfectly grey. There was no line between black and white; he sort of crosses that line multiple times, in both directions. I love that. And more importantly, we understood his reasons for crossing those lines, we sympathized. I definitely was more appeased in the third book with the multiple POV's. I got to see that perhaps, Tris was meant to be seen as an icon, a figurehead, a bit of a martyr. She, in a way, was NOT the hero of the story (I mean, she was, but she wasn't), rather she was the CATALYST that changed her friends, made an impact of Four. I loved that bit (of course, I may be delusional, but that's how I see it). I definitely ended up liking Divergent a lot more than I did Hunger Games (of course, I didn't quite LOVE it because there was too much time establishing Tris as the main protagonist and so for 2/3 of the series Tris fell a bit flat).
On a more general not about characters and plot, I feel like a major issue for me was definitely the fact that the heroes of any dystopian novel can sometimes feel so contrived (yeah, I'm talking about you, Matched). A lot of the time (definitely not saying always) a group of teens (sometimes just one, but most likely a group/organization/whatever) who decide to save the world. Yeah. Why you? Does nobody else really not care about anything? What makes these teens so special that THEY'RE the ones off gallivanting to be heroes. Are these people really the ONLY ones in society who care, who aren't ignorant? Really? Especially when the books try to be feminist and give a "strong heroine" who needs no man...only for that heroine to whine and fall, and generally be pretty useless or Mary-Sue. I get it, there are definitely a lot of books out there that give a reason and make it seem reasonable and realistic (circumstance, family situation, whatever), but then there are so many that don't...(MATCHED, I talkin' 'bout you).
And...the problem with plot pacing. Yeah that one's sort of self-explanatory and sometimes an issue of preference. For me, plot pacing can be a HUGE issue.
Shoutout to Mary Lu's Legend trilogy. Loved it. Freaking loved it. I have to admit, Day and June were a little perfect, Day especially at times seemed a bit of an angel. But more importantly, Day and June were so likable. June was very human (if a little too all-powerful, physically, sometimes) in her choices and wavering, and Day did have his rare and occasional bouts of selfishness and pettiness that made him a bit more real. But. But. Best of all, the PLOT. There was never a moment where I felt, yeah this is predictable. There were so many plot twists that were WELL-PLANNED and well developed and didn't seem unnecessary (unlike a lot of other books). The pacing was fast, but not abrupt. And man, in one word, it was just EPIC. It was pure EPIC. Maybe it wasn't the deepest or the most thoughtful book out there, but I loved it. It was massive-scale, and the society and world was just so well developed. It's like she thought of every question and answered them all. You could practically taste the culture of the Colonies, of the Republic. Man, Anden, he was so well developed, it smacked me in the face with it's awesomeness. Maybe it was deep, maybe there wasn't much message, but...EPIC. Totally EPIC. I absolutely recommend the trilogy to anyone. Champion (the finale) was definitely the best, all though Prodigy was just as amazing. Legend felt a bit more like a setup, but it was golden.
Btw, Mary Lu has a new book out, The Young Elites, which I haven't read, but it's at the top of my list right now. It's essentially the backstory of a possible villain. It's dark. So dark. It's going to be beautiful, I just know.