Finally, I am thankful to the readers who have taken my prickly, pious, ambitious, guarded, old-fashioned heroine into their hearts. Because I am often asked this question, I want to mention that I never saw the series as a dystopia. Aside from a noun or two, Anya’s world is pretty much like our own, and her battle is not against the forces of a terrifying and dehumanizing fictional society, but within herself. How do you get over your past and your mistakes? How do you find light when so much in the world seems dark, and sweetness when so much seems bitter? I ask these questions myself. I don’t have answers, but here is an observation: whether you are fictional or real, the world is as dark as you choose to see it.