YA dystopias explore the relationship of power between adults and adolescents through hyperboles. The Hunger Games in Suzanne Collins trilogy (2008-2010) is just one example of extreme oppression of the young. The exaggerations encourage readers to question the division of power between adults and adolescents in real-life societies. Research on YA dystopias has predominately focused on the role of adolescents as political symbols who rebel against repression when exploring the age category (cf. Day et. al.). However, the motifs of the adolescent killer and the adolescent mother highlight a similar interplay that can deepen the understanding of the category. The rhetoric of the hyperbole incorporates an educational potential that can be utilised in the classroom. Through a case study of the adolescent killer Red in Christina Henry’s The Girl in Red (2019) and the adolescent mother Lyda Mertz in Julianna Baggott’s Pure trilogy (2012–2014) I exemplify how the motifs interrogate the relationship of power between adults and the young. By applying an intersectional approach, I illustrate how other power categories, such as race, (dis)ability and gender, are intertwined with the characters’ age and position them in a matrix of domination (Hill Collins). Maria Nikolajeva’s concept aetonormativity refers to how adults are positioned as normative and children/adolescents as non-normative. Consequently, children have less power than the adults. Clémentine Beauvais instead argues that children are “mighty” in children’s literature, since they may be able to affect the world long after the adult generation has died. Thus, they have a different kind of power than adults. I illustrate how these positions can instead be conceptualised as two motifs. At different points in the narrative, Red and Lyda are variously depicted as controlled adolescents and mighty adolescents. I exemplify how this can be brought to attention in the classroom through different tasks.