Post-apocalyptic, dystopian series such as Divergent, Matched, the Hunger Games, and the Maze Runner have recently become very popular. Many people believe they would prefer to live in those worlds instead of ours, which is understandable; the exciting battles and amazing heroes make our world seem so plain and ordinary. Sadly, the book lovers, or nerds as they are affectionately called, should understand that most suburban teenagers would not thrive in those environments.

In many of these wildly popular novels, the main antagonist is a corrupted government. Most modern day suburban teenagers would be immediately slaughtered upon entering these damaged universes. The book characters grew up in that atmosphere, so they know what happened to the world and how they are meant to act. However, anyone transported to one of these tainted, autocratically-ruled worlds would not be aware of the operation of that particular universe. Quite frankly, present-day adolescents would be instantly eliminated due to their laziness and their act-before-thinking mindset.

If not death, depression could be a main factor in the deterioration of real world inhabitants in fictional realities. A constant risk of fatality and a significant loss of loved ones could cause insanity for almost anyone. Throughout these books, the protagonists continually suffer from the heart-wrenching deaths of friends and family members, and the reader is able to see the negative effects these fatalities have on the characters. Why would anyone wish that upon themselves?

These idealisms would not be nearly as appealing once they cease to be purely fictional. We, as human beings, generally only want what we cannot have. Once we attain whatever it is we desire, we find yet another idea to pursue. After obtaining the unobtainable and ending up in one of these broken universes, the only thing we would want would be freedom from that realm.

Besides, most of the characters in these books would easily choose to live in our universe. We have a slight lack of danger and not much need for a hero, but our un-extraordinary dimension is calm and does not require a great deal of effort to survive. Although our universe is somewhat boring, we should be thankful for our easy-going, unexciting lives.