best teen dystopian stories to read after hunger games and maze runner. im in to those 2, i like divergent, and the knife of never letting go is alright ig. I HATE the martian and to kill a mockingbird. i like it when theres death tragedies and preferably a bit of romance. i dont want red rising because i want it to be on a ruined earth. I also hate fantasy and i only like the sci fi if it's not extreme like about robots or space. I like the hunger games because it's more realistic and emotional. my fav tags are dystopian, romance, sci fi and in the future type of thing, and tragedy of course. Id prefer it to be narrated by a female.
by No-Compote1062
13 Comments
The novel Battle Royale by Kōshun Takami maybe
Also maybe it can be something popular because I need it to have a chance in my Ela class is why. The class got the Martian and I got a D but with hg and maze I got A’s for the semester. So hopefully it’s popular enough for my teacher to have in school
*Parable of the Sower* by Octavia Butler. It’s not YA, but it’s narrated by a teenage girl.
Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines series. It’s third person, not narrated, but it’s a fun adventure on a ruined earth with no magic.
You’ve covered the main teen dystopian novel series I kniw but I still have some non teen suggestions.
This may be outside the wheelhouse of what you described but look at Ilona Andrews Kate Daniels series, first book Magic Bites. The series without spinoffs and novellas is I think 10 books, and romance is hinted at but not seen for several books in so this may not by what you want. It is Urban fantasy after a cataclysm so perhaps a hard no for you, but check anyway, as the dystopian aspect is caused by magic re-entering the world and taking over tech, although magic and tech waves alternate unpredictably and a lot of society and infrastructure crashed as a result. Set in Atlanta for the most part. Not YA like those you listed.
Neal Stephenson Snow Crash, one of the main character arcs is a teen with a cool nearly jet powered skateboard.
Not books but you might want to watch all the episodes of the more recent version of Battlestar Galactica
You can both watch and read Firefly as there are I think now ten novelizations of the shows and movie as well as other stories never shown before the series was cancelled. Various authors including those who wrote the original show scripts. Some of the characters are teens.
Red Rising Trilogy
Scythe
1984
Have you read the other hunger games books? Ballad of songbirds and snakes and sunrise on the reaping.
The Uglies
Unwind
Emergence
You might like Six of Crows or the Shadow and Bone trilogy by Leigh Bardugo? It’s fantasy, but the world feels very grounded and there are a lot of moving parts in every story.
Station Eleven is a great dystopic novel, speculative fiction but no romance
I liked Ready Player One as a teen, it has a lot of technical language and exposition so if you’re into that it may be up your alley.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy is very dark (he’s a notoriously explicit author), but it is a post-societal world, and a staple of modern sci-fi.
I recently read Iron Widow as well, it is like Pacific Rim with an incredibly angry woman at the helm of the story.
Uglies (4 book series)
The Giver (4 book series)
The Handmaid’s Tale (has a sequel)
Station Eleven (novel)
The City of Ember (4 book series)
And as another commenter suggested, the other books in the Hunger Games universe if you haven’t already: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes & Sunrise on the Reaping
The Handmaid’s Tale (the original book) by Margaret Atwood. IMO skip the follow up sequel which seemed like it was done after the TV show created new interest in the first book a few decades after it was published. Atwood also has the Oryx & Crake trilogy which has more of a mix of characters but there are some women’s POVs and a richly detailed dystopian universe with the social hierarchies and genetic mutations that reminded me of the Hunger Games. I actually started with the second book Year of the Flood which is more women focused.
Another female centered sort of dystopian book is The Power (Naomi Alderman), not exactly romance but strong characters in interpersonal situations.
More of an aliens/time travel themed one (which I am not usually into) is the comics seriesl Papergirls. Four teen girls in the 80s, more friendship than romance.