Ten to fifteen years ago, this baby genre of YA dystopian fiction burst onto the scene with best selling series like Hunger Games and Divergent, creating a thirst for stories set in a disastrous future with a frighteningly oppressed society. There’s a reason readers are so drawn to this genre. Something about seeing someone overwhelmed with obstacles in a scary future world overcoming the odds to set society back on the right path is more than entertaining, it’s inspiring. However, not all YA dystopian fiction is created equally. The flood of releases in the genre in such a short period of time meant that for lots, the premise went stale quickly. But one of the beautiful things about books is that imagination and ingenuity know no bounds. This list I’ve compiled has the classics that started it all and some newer ones that have breathed fresh air and a unique twist on the now familiar genre. So whether you are new to the genre or a YA dystopian fiction alum seeking something enticingly different, I hope you find something enjoyable to read.
Scythe (Arc of a Scythe Series)
By Neal Shusterman
Fresh, unique and addictingly intriguing.
Thou shalt kill.
A world with no hunger, no disease, no war, no misery. Humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death. Now scythes are the only ones who can end life—and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control.
Citra and Rowan are chosen to apprentice to a scythe—a role that neither wants. These teens must master the “art” of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.
The Selection
By Keira Cass
The Bachelor version of YA dystopia.
For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to be swept up in a world of glittering gowns and priceless jewels. To live in a palace and compete for the heart of gorgeous Prince Maxon. But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare. It means turning her back on her secret love with Aspen, who is a caste below her. Leaving her home to enter a fierce competition for a crown she doesn’t want. Living in a palace that is constantly threatened by violent rebel attacks.
Then America meets Prince Maxon. Gradually, she starts to question all the plans she’s made for herself—and realizes that the life she’s always dreamed of may not compare to a future she never imagined.
Shatter Me
By Tahereh Mafi
Strong characters with a superhero feel to it.
Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days. The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl.
The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. But with so many dead and whispers of war, The Reestablishment has decided Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now. Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.
Wither (The Chemical Garden Trilogy)
By Lauren Destefano
A creepy yet can’t-stop-reading future world.
By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.
When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law is an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote. Her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next, and Rhine is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape–before her time runs out?
Matched
By Ally Condie
Matchmaking to an intoxicating extreme.
In the Society, officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die.
Cassia has always trusted their choices. It’s hardly any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one…until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path no one else has ever dared follow—between perfection and passion.
The Maze Runner
By James Dashner
Lord of the Flies on steroids.
When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his name. He’s surrounded by strangers—boys whose memories are also gone. Outside the towering stone walls that surround the Glade is a limitless, ever-changing maze. It’s the only way out—and no one’s ever made it through alive. Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying.
Remember. Survive. Run.
Divergent
By Veronica Roth
A heart-pounding, moving and inspiring classic.
In Tris’s dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). All sixteen-year-olds must select the faction they will devote their lives to. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.
During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Tris struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a fascinating yet exasperating boy fits in. But Tris also has a secret, one she’s been warned can mean death. Unrest and growing conflict threaten to unravel society, but her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.
The Hunger Games
By Suzanne Collins
One of the first and and still one of the best.
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.
Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister’s place in the Games. But survival is second nature for her. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weight survival against humanity and life against love.
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