Ever wonder what it takes to build a teenage president—and then throw her into a global scandal? We asked Soman Chainani, author of Young World, to take us behind the scenes of his high-stakes YA political thriller. Read on to learn more about the inspiration, ambition, and big ideas shaping his story.
Young World is far from a fairy tale. What can readers expect when they dive in?
We read fairy tales and fantasy to escape the real world. But what would it look like if the real world felt as surprising and wondrous as those fantasy worlds? That was my guiding question for Young World. To look at this world we live in with a completely new lens, one with young people in charge instead of adults. If I had to pin down a genre, it’s a geopolitical romantic thriller murder mystery.
What inspired you to write this story?
I’ve visited over 800 schools to talk about The School for Good and Evil over the past decade. I could see the change in young people. They are more anxious about the future—and rightfully so. Adults have absolutely robbed them of their right to be young. And that felt to me like a rallying cry for a new political movement. I wanted a revolution in the real world, so I wrote one on the page. This one can happen for real. And I think it needs to. Consider the book less fiction and more . . . handbook.
If you had to describe Young World in three words (or emojis), what would they be?
💥 🌍 😱
What Revolting Youth leader do you think would make the best real-world leader in 2026?
Good question. I don’t know if Steffi Huber, the fifteen-year-old German Prime Minister, would make the best real-world leader. She’d certainly be the most compelling. As for Benton Young, the seventeen-year-old President of the United States, he too has a very high ceiling—and a very low floor. All I can say.
(No spoilers) Was there a scene that was especially fun to write?
Steam room scene. Mouth zipped beyond that.
Young World has such a unique format. Can you tell us a little more about what inspired the format and your creative process?
I just felt like if I was going to do a book about a revolution, the book needed to feel like one. So I took a hammer to the old form of writing a novel and said: If I write this as a first-person diary, what would it literally look like? A seventeen-year-old boy likely wouldn’t write an all-prose diary the way a girl might. There’d be sketches, memes, inserted pieces of paper, fragments from his day . . . I told my editor from day one: This book had to be in neon-bright color. It had to feel like a teenage scream.
If Young World were to be adapted for film or TV, who would your dream cast be?
Honestly, I never think that way. I feel like the right actors would arrive at the right time. That said, I firmly believe Walker Scobell could be elected President of the United States if he was allowed to run. I wrote an entire essay about this in my weekly Substack called Diary of a Novel—he embodies the kind of teenager who a country might trust to bring us back from corrupted adults. My goal, then, for the cast of the adaptation would be to find a whole host of Walkers that make us believe a global young revolution could succeed.
What’s the last YA book you read that you absolutely loved?
I finally read E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars and was blown away by the poetry and depth of that novel. She is a brilliant storyteller. I’m also a big fan of Nic Stone’s upcoming book Dasia (Forever). Nic is an American treasure.
What advice would you give to someone who reads your book and wants to get more involved in creating change?
We created a whole website designed around this: revoltingyouth.org. We have a collaboration there with the organization Run for Something, encouraging youth candidates, as well as voter registration and pre-voter registration for those under eighteen, plus a roundup of Revolting Youth news happening around the world.
Describe your perfect Young World playlist.
First song: The Cranberries’ “Salvation.” Second song: Madonna’s “Ray of Light.” Third song: 1975’s “About You.” Those three in a row will give you the landscape of all the places this book can go, even though that might make zero sense until you read it.
What’s the most outlandish thing you’ve done (or been asked to do) to promote one of your novels?
I do pretty crazy photo shoots for each one, where I try to embody the theme with my body and outfits as much as I can. It’s my way of clearing the slate and becoming a new incarnation. I tend to do it pretty early in the process, long before the book’s out. It helps me get into the skin of the new novel. The shoot for Young World was epic and took two days. Check out the results on my Instagram.
Tell us a little bit about your podcast.
It’s called Plot Twist and I cohost with Victoria Aveyard, the author of Red Queen and Realm Breaker. She is one of my great friends, and we both are starting new phases of our careers. Young World is my first YA, and she has Tempest coming out, which is her first adult novel. We came up with the idea of just tracking our experience weekly, in detail, from drafting all the way to release, in order to illuminate the journeys to each other and to any others who might be interested in the nitty-gritty of the artistic process. Somehow it took off like a bottle rocket. It’s been on the top podcast charts for our category for pretty much the last ten months straight. We are mystified as to why, but I think it’s because writing can be lonely, so just having an hour-long conversation with a friend about being a writer and then broadcasting it to the world makes the work feel a little less lonely to all the other artists and aspiring artists out there.
Is it true you’ve been declared a danger to the national interests of the country of Belarus because of one of your books?
Yes. And I look forward to being added to more countries’ lists.
