Focusing on dystopian novels featuring a female protagonist, this collection explores the liminal nature of a young woman contending with societal and governmental threats at the same time that she is navigating the treacherous waters of young adulthood. Essays on writers that include Libba Bray, Scott Westerfeld, Tahereh Mafi, Veronica Roth, Ally Condie, and Suzanne Collins show how this rebellious figure interrogates the competing constructions of adolescent womanhood in late-twentieth- and early twenty-first-century culture.

Introduction: From "New Woman" to "Future Girl": The Roots and the Rise of the Female Protagonist in Contemporary Young Adult Dystopias; Part I Reflections and Reconsiderations of Rebellious Girlhood; Chapter 1 Girl Power and Girl Activism in the Fiction of Suzanne Collins, Scott Westerfeld, and Moira Young, Sonya Sawyer Fritz; Chapter 2 "I'm beginning to know who I am": The Rebellious Subjectivities of Katniss Everdeen and Tris Prior, Miranda A. Green-Barteet; Chapter 3 Of Scrivens and Sparks: Girl Geniuses in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction, Rachel Dean-Ruzicka; Chapter 4 Docile Bodies, Dangerous Bodies: Sexual Awakening and Social Resistance in Young Adult Dystopian Novels, Sara K. Day; Part II Forms and Signs of Rebellion; Chapter 5 Gender Rolls: Bread and Resistance in the "Hunger Games" Trilogy, Meghan Gilbert-Hickey; Chapter 6 Rebels in Dresses: Distractions of Competitive Girlhood in Young Adult Dystopian Fiction, Amy L. Montz; Chapter 7 The Three Faces of Tally Youngblood: Rebellious Identity-Changing in Scott Westerfeld's "Uglies" Series, Mary Jeanette Moran; Chapter 8 "Perpetually waving to an unseen crowd": Satire and Process in Beauty Queens, Bridgitte Barclay; Part III Contexts and Communities of Rebellion; Chapter 9 Rebellious Natures: The Role of Nature in Young Adult Dystopian Female Protagonists' Awakenings and Agency, Megan McDonough, Katherine A. Wagner; Chapter 10 Real or Not Real-Katniss Everdeen Loves Peeta Melark: The Lingering Effects of Discipline in the "Hunger Games" Trilogy, June Pulliam; Chapter 11 The Incompatibility of Female Friendships and Rebellion, Ann M. M. Childs;