Staff Picks

After the Games: Dystopian Fiction for Hunger Games Fans

Dystopia: An imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one.

Can't get enough Hunger Games - or can't get your hands on a copy? Check out these titles for other books and series set in a nightmare future. Titles that are not part of a series are noted.

Chris H.
Ashes     Ashes    
Ilsa J. Bick
    Y Bick

Alex, a resourceful seventeen-year-old running from her incurable brain tumor, Tom, who has left the war in Afghanistan, and Ellie, an angry eight-year-old, join forces after an electromagnetic pulse sweeps through the sky and kills most of the world's population, turning some of those who remain into zombies and giving the others superhuman senses.

Blood Red Road     Blood Red Road    
Maoira Young
    Y Young

In a distant future, eighteen-year-old Lugh is kidnapped, and while his twin sister Saba and nine-year-old Emmi are trailing him across bleak Sandsea they are captured, too, and taken to brutal Hopetown, where Saba is forced to be a cage fighter until new friends help plan an escape.

Divergent     Divergent    
Veronica Roth
    Y Roth
Insurgent Trilogy

In a future Chicago, sixteen-year-old Beatrice Prior must choose among five predetermined factions to define her identity for the rest of her life, a decision made more difficult when she discovers that she is an anomaly who does not fit into any one group, and that the society she lives in is not perfect after all.

Enclave     Enclave    
Ann Aguirre
    Y Aguirre

In a post-apocalyptic future, fifteen-year-old Deuce, a loyal Huntress, brings back meat while avoiding the Freaks outside her enclave, but when she is partnered with the mysterious outsider, Fade, she begins to see that the strict ways of the elders may be wrong--and dangerous.

Epic     Epic    
Conor Kostick
    Y Kostick

On New Earth, a world based on a video role-playing game, fourteen-year-old Erik pursuades his friends to aid him in some unusual gambits in order to save Erik's father from exile and safeguard the futures of each of their families.

Epitaph Road     Epitaph Road    
David Patneaude
    Y Patneau

In 2097, men are a small and controlled minority in a utopian world ruled by women, and fourteen-year-old Kellen must fight to save his father from an outbreak of the virus that killed ninety-seven percent of the male population thirty years earlier. This book is not part of a series.

Exodus     Exodus    
Julie Bertagna
    Y Bertagn

In the year 2100, as the island of Wing is about to be covered by water, fifteen-year-old Mara discovers the existence of New World sky cities that are safe from the storms and rising waters, and convinces her people to travel to one of these cities in order to save themselves.

How I Live Now     How I Live Now    
Meg Rosoff
    Y Rosoff

To get away from her pregnant stepmother in New York City, fifteen-year-old Daisy goes to England to stay with her aunt and cousins, with whom she instantly bonds, but soon war breaks out and rips apart the family while devastating the land. This book is not part of a series. For more mature readers.

Little Brother     Little Brother    
Cory Doctorow
    Y Doctoro


Mortal Engines     Mortal Engines    
Philip Reeve
    Y Reeve
Hungry City Chronicles

In the distant future, when cities move about and consume smaller towns, a fifteen-year-old apprentice is pushed out of London by the man he most admires and must seek answers in the perilous Out-Country, aided by one girl and the memory of another.

Perdido Street Station     Perdido Street Station    
China Mieville
    SF Mievill
New Crobuzon

In the squalid, gothic city of New Crobuzon, a mysterious half-human, half-bird stranger comes to Isaac, a gifted but eccentric scientist, with a request to help him fly, but Isaac's obsessive experiments and attempts to grant the request unleash a terrifying dark force on the entire city. Part sci-fi, part fantasy, and part horror. For more mature readers.

Sharp North     Sharp North    
Patrick Cave
    Y Cave
Sharp North

In a futuristic world, Great Families rule Britain through a caste system where reproduction is seriously restricted, while the families keep illegal clones or "spares" of themselves.

Ship Breaker     Ship Breaker    
Paolo Bacigalupi
    Y Bacigal
Ship Breaker

In a futuristic world, teenaged Nailer scavenges copper wiring from grounded oil tankers for a living, but when he finds a beached clipper ship with a girl in the wreckage, he has to decide if he should strip the ship for its wealth or rescue the girl.

The Declaration     The Declaration    
Gemma Malley
    Y Malley

In 2140 England, where drugs enable people to live forever and children are illegal, teenaged Anna, an obedient "Surplus" training to become a house servant, discovers that her birth parents are trying to find her.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth     The Forest of Hands and Teeth    
Carrie Ryan
    Y Ryan
The Forest of Hands and Teeth

Through twists and turns of fate, orphaned Mary seeks knowledge of life, love, and especially what lies beyond her walled village and the surrounding forest, where dwell the unconsecrated, aggressive flesh-eating people who were once dead.

The House of the Scorpion     The House of the Scorpion    
Nancy Farmer
    Y Farmer or J Farmer

In a future where humans despise clones, Matt enjoys special status as the young clone of El PatroÌn, the 142-year-old leader of a corrupt drug empire nestled between Mexico and the United States. This book is not part of a series.

The Knife of Never Letting Go     The Knife of Never Letting Go    
Patrick Ness
    Y Ness
Chaos Walking

Pursued by power-hungry Prentiss and mad minister Aaron, young Todd and Viola set out across New World searching for answers about his colony's true past and seeking a way to warn the ship bringing hopeful settlers from Old World.

The Maze Runner     The Maze Runner    
James Dashner
    Y Dashner
Maze Runner Trilogy


The Supernaturalist     The Supernaturalist    
Eoin Colfer
    Y Colfer

In futuristic Satellite City, fourteen-year-old Cosmo Hill escapes from his abusive orphanage and teams up with three other people who share his unusual ability to see supernatural creatures, and together they determine the nature and purpose of the swarming blue Parasites that are invisible to most humans. This book is not part of a series.

Uglies     Uglies    
Scott Westerfeld
    Y Westerf

Just before their sixteenth birthdays, when they will will be transformed into beauties whose only job is to have a great time, Tally's best friend runs away and Tally must find her and turn her in, or never become pretty at all.

Unwind     Unwind    
Neal Shusterman
    Y Shuster

In America after the Second Civil War, the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life armies came to an agreement: The Bill of Life states that human life may not be touched from the moment of conception until a child reaches the age of thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, a parent may choose to retroactively get rid of a child through a process called "unwinding." Unwinding ensures that the child's life doesn't "technically" end by transplanting all the organs in the child's body to various recipients. Now a common and accepted practice in society, troublesome or unwanted teens are able to easily be unwound.

Y, the Last Man. 1, Unmanned     Y, the Last Man. 1, Unmanned    
Brian K. Vaughan
    GN Vaughan
Y, the Last Man

When a plague of unknown origin kills every mammal with a Y chromosome, Yorick Brown discovers that he is the only male left and embarks on a transcontinental journey to discover why. This series of graphic novels is recommended for more mature readers.