Fans love The Hunger Games series for dozens of reasons. Maybe you love apocalyptic YA fiction in general, or maybe you just love gritty YA heroines in survival situations. Maybe you’re a fan of the YA love triangle trope, and Katniss, Peta, and Gale made your heart sing! Whatever the reason, Katniss Everdeen and her amazing story has captured the hearts and imaginations of multiple generations.
Find your next great read for National Reading Month by exploring my reviews of these engrossing YA books like The Hunger Games. I have a few off-beat recommendations that don’t make the usual lists of dystopian YA books similar to The Hunger Games. The novels below have two things in common: a fight for survival and girls who find themselves without parents in hostile environments.
Coywood Creek by Khristina Chess
“With an unremarkable click, like a period at the end of a sentence, the world ended.” ― Khristina Chess, quote from Coywood Creek
With that opening sentence, this funny and addictive dystopian novel takes off! At first, the protagonist Zoey is unfazed by the blackout, cell service disruption, and strange northern lights in the sky, but she soon realizes she cannot remain in her parents’ condo alone.
She expects to find good people at Coywood Creek, like her uncle and grandmother, but she finds something else.
Holy macaroni! Coywood Creek is a page-turner with a lot of heart! Zoey is a normal teen struggling with normal issues―like swallowing her anxiety in a bag of OREO cookies―but as she realizes that the lights aren’t coming back on ever again, she’s forced to make new choices. The witty dialog between Zoey and Kent made me laugh out loud at times. I wanted to see how all of this would resolve itself, and it left me thinking about how vulnerable humans are when our technology is stripped away.
Readers who want YA books like The Hunger Games should pick up this new release by Khristina Chess. In fact, this author is so awesome she’s on my list of Best YA Authors to Binge on Kindle Unlimited.
Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis
“There's different ways of doing things wrong, Lynn, and not all of it is choosing to hurt others. Sometimes it's the things you don't do that make you feel the worst.” ― Mindy McGinnis, quote from Not a Drop to Drink
Set in an apocalyptic future where drinking water is scarce and people fight for survival in a wild frontier, Lynn is a young woman in rural Ohio defending a pond and her homestead. Her mother raised her to distrust, to fight, and to live, and that's what she intends to do.
I enjoyed watching Lynn's fierce character evolve into a person who was willing to allow others into her life, to trust and even love. Despite her hardness, she had a kind heart. There were some interesting scenes in interactions with other people, like the stranger on the road, that tested her humanity.
Not a Drop to Drink was also a fast, thrilling YA book about survival, and its sequel, In a Handful of Dust, follows Lynn and her adopted daughter Lucy into the unknown after a mysterious plague drives them away from their home and community and into the wilderness.
If you’re looking for YA books like The Hunger Games, give these two a try.
Z for Zachariah by Robert O’Brien
“I am afraid. Someone is coming.” ― Robert C O’Brien, quote from Z for Zachariah
I remember reading this book in our school library in high school, and it was chilling. Now an adult, decades later, I bought a copy of it to see if it was really as good as I remembered.
Yes, yes it is!
Young adult fiction wasn't even "a thing" when this book was written, and yet, it's a thrilling, roller-coaster true YA novel about a 15-year-old girl (who turns 16 during the events) who believes she's the last person alive after a nuclear war. She's resilient, resourceful, wary, hopeful, and that mix of both childlike and wise that you would expect from a teen in this situation.
When a stranger arrives in the valley, a man, she is cautious, but as events unfold and he becomes sick, she lets her guard down to help him. This turns out to be a mistake.
The Hollywood movie version gets this book wrong: the female is older, and there are two men. If you love dystopian YA novels like The Hunger Games and haven't picked this one up, I highly recommend it!
The Stand by Stephen King
“Love didn't grow very well in a place where there was only fear, just as plants didn't grow very well in a place where it was always dark.” ― Stephen King, quote from The Stand
In the apocalyptic and dystopian category, one book stands above the crowd: Stephen King’s The Stand. It’s my all-time favorite book. I’ve read it at least 7 times. I read it first in high school, so while it may not be a “YA book” in the strict definition of the category, teen readers can handle it. Trust me. I wrote my senior thesis about the themes in this book.
In this sweeping apocalyptic novel, a man-made virus named Captain Tripps kills almost everyone on earth. There are a handful of remaining viewpoint characters who become the focal point for this epic story. Their storylines run concurrently. At first they seem disconnect, but slowly they begin moving and coming together. There are some truly terrifying scenes, and a supernatural element pops up because—remember—it’s Stephen King. At the end of the world, the heroes must make a final stand against evil.
Fans who liked The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins will love The Stand (and probably read it twice).
Against the Pack by Khristina Chess
“All I knew with absolute confidence was that I could move and she couldn’t. If I stayed, we might both die waiting. If I left, we might both die alone. If I left, she might die alone, but I might find help and live. Or I might find help in time, lead them to the shelter, and we might both live.” ― Khristina Chess, quote from Against the Pack
While walking on a rural road, Melender and her mom are attacked by a pack of dogs—forced over a near-vertical hillside into a ravine. Now they’re trapped. Wounded. Stranded on a narrow ledge with no food, no water, no shelter. No phone. No way out.
No one knows where they are. No one even knows they’re missing.
The only thing Melender has is her will to survive.
She doesn’t want to leave her critically injured mom behind, but if she doesn’t find help soon, neither of them will make it.
OH MY GOSH—this book is impossible to put down! Against the Pack is a pulse-pounding survival thriller that grips you from the first page and never lets go. Melender is gritty, determined, and unforgettable, and her journey is as emotional as it is harrowing. As the hours stretch into days, the novel doesn’t just test her endurance—it unravels the complicated, raw truths of her relationship with her mother.
If you love high-stakes stories that test a character’s self-reliance like The Hunger Games, Against the Pack is an action-packed, emotionally intense YA thriller that will keep you on edge until the very last page. Melender’s fight to survive isn’t just physical—it’s psychological, raw, and deeply personal. Fans of The Hunger Games will love this one!
The Razorland Trilogy: Enclave, Outpost, Horde by Ann Aguirre
The Razorland Trilogy was one of the first YA books like The Hunger Games that I read, and from the very first pages, I was hooked! The novels are set in a dark future where the cities are ruined by plague, war, “tunnel monsters,” and ongoing skirmishes between the surviving gangs that roam in this world. In the first book, Enclave, we meet the heroine, a fifteen-year-old girl named Deuce who lives in the New York subway in a community called an enclave. Life is hard. It becomes even harder when she and another teenage Hunter are exiled from their enclave and must go to the surface to live.
The next two books, Outpost and Horde, follow Deuce in her new life above ground, and all three novels are fast-paced, engrossing reads that I couldn’t put down. Each book was as good as the last, very immersive, and Deuce is a well-drawn, fighting heroine that I rooted for every step of the way.
Check out these books, which are similar to The Hunger Games. You will love them.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
“You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget.” ― Cormac McCarthy, quote from The Road
Maybe you’re looking for something similar to Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games but don’t mind an adult protagonist. If so, pick up The Road. This dystopian, post-apocalyptic book is gripping from the very first page. A man and his son are on the road, and something truly awful has happened. What?
The story unfolds at a delicious crawl. You can feel the agony and terror of their situation. There are a couple of scenes that are truly chilling. The horror of them has remained with me forever.
There’s a reason this novel won a Pulitzer Prize. Read it. You won’t regret it.
Wilder Girls by Rory Power
“…we’ve learned that all we can do is look after our own. Reese and Byatt, they’re mine and I’m theirs.” ― Rory Power, quote from Wilder Girls
I wanted to read Wilder Girls for many years on the basis of its cover alone. It’s one of my top-10 YA favorite covers of all time. It’s so beautiful and intriguing, without even knowing what the story is about.
An all-girls school on an island is quarantined because of a mysterious plague that has killed a significant portion of both the student and faculty population, as well as animals, and the remaining people are infected. This disease does terrible things to them. Now, they’re waiting for a cure. It’s been promised. They just have to stay alive until it comes.
The pacing is fast, and I was drawn into the relationships between the girls. They are gritty heroines. I couldn’t wait to discover what was truly going on and how this situation would ultimately be resolved.
Wilder Girls definitely meets the criteria for the list of engrossing YA books like The Hunger Games.
I Am Still Alive by Kate Alice Marshall
“To survive you need to learn to hold contradictory things in your head at the same time. I am going to die; I am going to live. There is nothing to fear; be wary of everything.” ― Kate Alice Marshall, quote from I Am Still Alive
What an amazing page-turner! From the beginning this book grabbed me and didn't let go. It's the kind of story that had me staying up late to read, sitting outside in the shade to read, read, read, reading to finish because I couldn't put this novel down. It starts with a BANG--literally, when strangers kill Jess's father, leaving her stranded in the wilderness of Canada with his dog, Bo. She's still recovering from a car accident that killed her mother, so she doesn't walk well, and she's a city girl so she's not great at hunting and fishing. How will she handle a Canadian winter alone without shelter or food?
She is alive. And she is tenacious.
I loved this girl's grit, and I wanted to see her survive. I wanted to know the answer to the mystery about who the men killed her father.
And after reading this one, I binged on everything that Kate Alice Marshall has written and added her to my list of Best YA Authors to Binge on Kindle Unlimited because she’s amazing! She’s near the top of my list of the best YA book recommendations and authors of all time.
If you’re looking for a gripping YA book about survival similar to The Hunger Games, check out I Am Still Alive.
Darkness Begins (After the EMP) by Harley Tate
My edition actually had the first 3 books together, but I didn't realize this until the transition to the second book.
Harley Tate gives an excellent story about a woman, daughter, and husband who are separated when the power goes out around the world. The daughter has 3 college friends with her. The viewpoint alternates between the mother, daughter, and father as they attempt to find one another in the immediate chaos, so I’ve listed this as a “bonus” book instead of pure YA.
The narrative is fast-paced, and the characters face many serious challenges in their journey. I became invested in the characters and their efforts to reunite, and then, I wanted them to achieve their goal of finding safety at the college roommate's parents' house in the mountains.
For fans of The Hunger Games, this is good book and new author to check out. She has a lot of others in her backlist too.
Cell by Stephen King
If you are interested in the political tensions between collectivism/socialism versus individualism, read Stephen King’s Cell. These themes are painted with subtle and beautiful strokes.
I recently read it a second time because I remembered two things: it was a great, fast read and I didn't like the ending (but didn't remember what it was). Now, some 15 years later, I can honestly say that the book remains a fabulous, fast-paced and engrossing read, and I appreciated the ending much better.
The novel is a zombie pandemic of sorts, set off with cell phones, and I read it during quarantine of the cornavirus pandemic of 2020. In Cell, the end of the world came with a single, abrupt pulse that changes everything, and it sends a group of survivors on a journey to find one man's son. Along the way, we learn what happened and is still evolving as a result of the pulse.
If you’re looking for compelling apocalyptic and dystopian books like The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, you will love this one.
Unwind by Neal Shusterman
“You see, a conflict always begins with an issue - a difference of opinion, an argument. But by the time it turns into a war, the issue doesn't matter anymore, because now it's about one thing and one thing only: how much each side hates the other.” ― Neal Shusterman, quote from Unwind
Unwind is Book #1 in a 5-part dystopian YA series in which teens may be sent to "Harvest Camps" to be chopped up for parts if their parents sign the papers. No part is wasted.
Some, like Connor, are signed over because of behavior problems. Others, like Risa, are wards of the state who simply don't make the cut in terms of protegee status. Lev begins as a religious tithe, a willing victim, but after being kidnapped and freed by Connor, he also changes.
The concept of this series and the plotting are great, and I'm interested to see where the rest of the books go. There were moments, though, where I thought the book fell short of greatness. For example:
If a parent is able to bring all the parts of their child back together again, can they recover their child?
Where do the souls of these children go?
There are some attempts at these questions, but I wanted the book to go deeper. The fact that I keep thinking about the unwinding process means that something important is being covered here.
You definitely want to add Unwind to your TBR pile of apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, and dystopian books like The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.
Divergent by Veronica Roth
Like The Hunger Games, there’s a reason that Veronica Roth’s Divergent series has become a classic series in the category of apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic, and dystopian YA science fiction books.
For me, I loved the heroine, Tris, who finds herself thrust into this whole new environment that tests her core character and everything she knew about herself. The book grabs you and takes off running! There’s adventure, moral ambiguity, love, and tons of conflict. What more do you need? It’s very well written and engrossing.
Other Engrossing YA Books Like The Hunger Games
If you are looking for other engrossing YA books like The Hunger Games, check out Books similar to The Hunger Games list on Goodreads. You might also be interested in my post, Other Good Reads, which lists other reviews of Binge-Worthy YA Books So Addicting You Can’t Stop Reading.
Khristina Chess is the award-winning author of several YA novels about troubled teens turning corners. You can find her on Amazon, Goodreads, and Twitter as an active daily contributor in the #5amwritersclub.