#wouldn't this be bad' books (in terms of concept) really hinges on how valid the concept is

[cogentranting]

The Hunger Games succeeds (and more so achieves sort of mythic effect) because it approaches dystopia through the timeless-- it (and Ballad) brings these universal ideas to a very personal lens and asks questions like "how do we begin to excuse evil in our lives" or "how do you hold on to goodness in the midst of oppression". And because it is so invested in the transcendent it lends itself to very powerful symbols, which give it that mythic feel.

Orwell's books (Animal Farm and 1984) both succeed through a very different approach to dystopia (Animal Farm isn't really a dystopia in the traditional sense but it has a lot of the elements). Orwell succeeds through real perceptive insight into the inner mechanisms of the subjects of his critiques. Orwell has vision that can cut deep into the way that things like propaganda or 'controlling the narrative' work and then, having dissected them, hold those tactics up for all to see.

And I think a lot of dystopias fall short because they get tangled up in the Idea of their story. The "what if" they've created. Either focused too much on the Issue-- too narrowly to be universal, too broadly to be revealing-- or too disconnected from anything genuine. And because they get stuck at that particular point they don't have much more to offer than "wouldn't this be bad?" And if you get a pretty good writer they can make that feel insightful but really it doesn't have much more to offer than whatever absurd YA book comes to mind first when you hear "bad dystopian novel".