So. You read The Hunger Games. You devoured Catching Fire. You re-read the ending of Mockingjay at least two or three times.
What’s next?
Here is a selection of Young Adult novels that should sate your need:
Black Hole Sun by David Macinnis Gill. The best way to describe this book is like a teenage version of the movie Serenity. Set in a bleak future, no one lives on Earth anymore, but on Mars. What happens when Durango and his crew are hired to protect a mining community from feral marauders? You’ll have to read to find out.
Divergent by Veronica Roth. I was the edge of my seat with this one, it was fresh and a great kick to the teeth. In a dystopic Chicago, sixteen year olds are expected to choose one of five factions, where they’ll spend the rest of their lives. However, Tris does not belong to any one faction, she’s Divergent – something that is rare, feared, and could get her killed. I screamed when I finished this book – the sequel, Insurgent, is not due until sometime in 2012.
The Girl Who Was On Fire: your favorite authors on Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy, edited by Leah Wilson. Thirteen of your favorite authors take you back to Panem with pieces on Katniss, the Games, Gale and Peeta, survival, and reality TV. This is a completely unauthorized title!
Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan. In this bold and imaginative title, the Earth is long gone, and the current crop of teenagers were born in deep space. Waverly knows that her duty, at age fifteen, is to marry young and populate the new planet – but the violent betrayal of her ship by another spaceship has devastating consequences for everyone on board.
The Maze Runner by James Dashner. What if you woke up one day in the middle of a maze, with no memory, and no idea how you got there? That’s what happens to Thomas, and if he doesn’t escape … things will only get very, very bad.
XVI by Julia Karr. Dreading the government-mandated tattoo which declares her availability to the public at sixteen, Nina is shattered by a brutal attack on her mother, who before dying reveals to Nina a shocking truth about her family and her past. Will Nina be able to save herself, her sister, and her best friend Sandy?
Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughn. Y: The Last Man is one of those graphic novel series that you have to marathon. Don’t just inter-library loan the first volume, loan at least the first SIX to get started. The series starts on the day that EVERYONE with the XY chromosome drops dead, except Yorick Brown and his male Capuchin monkey, Ampersand.
More Books! Recommended by Philip Reeve and Eric Norton in the August 2011 School Library Journal
