Exclusive Interview
‘Young World’ Author Soman Chainani Talks Power, Love & Making a Teen President
What To Know
- Soman Chainani has released a new YA novel, Young World.
- The book follows Benton Young, who becomes President of the United States at just 17 years old.
- The author spoke to Swooon about a potential sequel and adaptation.
As the United States of America turns 250, what better time to read Soman Chainani’s Young World than now? The YA political thriller, which was released on May 5, is the latest novel by the author of The School for Good & Evil.
While trying to impress a girl, Benton Young posts a video and dares everyone to write him in for President of the United States. America’s youth doesn’t have any confidence in their older leaders, so Benton’s viral video ignites a political upset no one saw coming. So, 17-year-old Benton winds up in the White House, kickstarting an election revolution around the world, with eight nations led by teenagers. But just as Benton’s term begins, he finds himself at the center of a murder investigation, and he has to unravel a web of secrets while running the country.
From the get-go, Chainani knew that Young World would have to be written as Benton’s diary as he navigates this brave new world. “It had to be his first-person diary because then there’s no judgment,” Chainani told Swooon. “It’s just him confessing, and I felt like we often get these days romances, 90% of the time are told from the perspective of the female, especially because of the audience, and I love the idea of a teenage boy being like Catcher in the Rye style, Adrian Mole style, ‘I’m going to tell you everything I’m feeling, and this is going to start with a girl.'”
He continued, “I knew it was going to start with him being in love with a girl, and that was going to motivate everything. I also knew that, because he’s a teenage boy, there’s secrets. That was very important to me: that he was holding a secret, and so that’s kind of where it began, was this idea of a confessional tone, ordinary teenage boy. I did not want some sophisticated, super brilliant Model UN kid. I wanted an ordinary teenage boy who was just after a girl who’s not into him.”
On top of Benton’s POV, Young World is filled with contents that any teenager would have saved on his phone or printed out for learning purposes. “I wanted it to feel 2026 with the memes, the text, the information, the documents, everything he’s going through is in there, so it’s almost like you know you’re reading The Da Vinci Code, but you’ve got kind of these visual chapters in between,” the author explained.
Chainani rose to fame with his six-book School for Good & Evil series, a fresh spin on the fairy tales we know and love. Creating a new universe but staying within the young adult genre was essential for the author.
“I wanted a book that did not feel particularly safe, but it also felt like something all teenagers would recognize,” Chainani told Swooon. “YA is increasingly disappearing because middle grade has kind of gotten younger, and then all the YA authors move to adult, and there’s this idea of teenagers just want to read older and older books, and I think in Heated Rivalry or stuff like that, you’re seeing the fans of Heated Rivalry are all like 14 and 15, which is insane to me, and then they go read the books, and you feel like, okay, we’ve actually left this big vacancy in YA for books that are actually really for teenagers. I knew I wanted to occupy that space, but that also meant telling the truth, and yes, it was going to be edgy, and yes, it was going to go all kinds of interesting places, but it was going to be authentic to what teenagers are.”
The author noted that he would “love” to write a Young World sequel. “It would be great to have one every four years. I have an idea for the second one. I know what it would look like. I just have the whole thing in my head. I’d love to do it because I feel like it’s very important to me that young people have a political course for revolt because I think this should happen in some form or another,” he said.
With the adaptation takeover happening in Hollywood, what’s the status on Young World? Chainani revealed that there was “a huge amount of interest in the beginning when I hadn’t even finished writing half of it.” However, when President Trump was reelected in 2024, Chainani pointed out that “politics became very uncomfortable.”
Chainani has tapped Eric Schultz, President Obama’s former deputy press secretary, as an executive producer for a potential adaptation. “The right person will understand it and be able to partner with Eric to make something awesome,” Chainani said confidently.
As for his thoughts on who should play Benton? “I think it would have to be someone unknown,” Chainani said. “He has to have the feeling of someone you can imagine being president.”
