Hi! 😊
I’m looking for dystopian book recommendations that are not too dark or violent.
I’d prefer something with a bit of romance or a softer/emotional atmosphere.
Also, I’d love less popular or underrated books if possible 👀
For reference, I already know or have read: The Selection, The Book of Ivy, Delirium, Uglies, The Chemical Garden series, Inside Out, and The Forgetting.
So I’m really looking for new ideas!
No explicit scenes if possible 🙏
Thanks 🙂
by MondesFragmentes47
11 Comments
The Dog Stars
Station 11
Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
You might enjoy Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde and its sequel Red Side Story. The books are a kind of quirky dystopia set in a world where your place in society is determined by your colour vision and you must adhere to the rules, no matter how illogical. For example there is a quota of how many gloves have to be manufactured but also it is strictly forbidden to ever wear gloves so they are destroyed as soon as they are made.
I think “Jennifer Government” by Max Barry qualifies 😉 It’s a corporate/techbro satire, and really funny most of the time.
*The Electric Kingdom* came out in 2021 and is a post-apocolytic YA book that features a young girl trying to track down the origins of a mysterious “fairy tale.”
*Memory of Water* by Emmi Itäranta – Beautifully written and poetic dystopian book about a girl and her friend as they live in a world where water is rationed. It’s basically a character study in an interesting post-apocalyptic world. Doesn’t have much action, but features some very interesting post-change conversations.
*Walk The Vanished Earth* feels like a step up from *Station Eleven*. We jump forward and backward in time in a story centering around global environmental collapse. Extremely interesting the way the stories come together and the relationships here feel very grounded and realistic.
Klara and the Sun
The Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing. One of my all time favorite books.
Does post-apocalyptic count as dystopian?
I really enjoyed *Bannerless* and its sequel *The Wild Dead* by Carrie Vaughn. They are set a couple of generations after the world has fallen apart and focus on communities along the California coast who are trying to live in a more deliberate and conscientious way (with the implication that a lack of care was behind the world falling apart).
In each book (set decades apart), a rare murder has been committed and the main character is trying to figure it out.
Conform by Ariel Sullivan and the prequel Beneath! I am reading Beneath right now as it just came out in March. I really like the world, the authors character driven storytelling, it’s not super dark or heavy but there are emotional themes. Both are planned trilogy’s so Conform did leave off on a cliffhanger fyi.
To Cage A Wild Bird by Brook Fast is another one that came out last year I enjoyed.