Young Adult Dystopian Fiction

Skylar Reid is shaken when Sasha, the little girl she babysits, is kidnapped. She's scared that the weird dreams she's been having about Sasha are real - and even more afraid that Sasha is already dead. When a mysterious girl with extreme butt-kicking abilities roars into town on a motorcycle and starts stalking Skylar, things get even weirder. Supergirl Dana tells Sky that she also has abilities, that a hormone in their blood makes them stronger, faster, smarter...

Nine of us came here. We look like you. We talk like you. We live among you. But we are not you. We can do things you dream of doing. We have powers you dream of having. We are stronger and faster than anything you have ever seen. We are the superheroes you worship in movies and comic books—but we are real.

The enemy is Other. The enemy is us. They’re down here, they’re up there, they’re nowhere. They want the Earth, they want us to have it. They came to wipe us out, they came to save us. But beneath these riddles lies one truth: Cassie has been betrayed. So has Ringer. Zombie. Nugget. And all 7.5 billion people who used to live on our planet. Betrayed first by the Others, and now by ourselves. In these last days, Earth’s remaining survivors will need to decide what’s more important: saving themselves...or saving what makes us human.

Khalani Kanes has never stood on the surface of the earth. In the underground city of Apollo, faith and dreams are as absent as the sun. She longs to visit Genesis, the infamous Domed City and the final place where humanity lives aboveground. But when Khalani is given a life sentence and thrown into prison for a theft she didn't commit, that wish shatters into oblivion.

Sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji is on the run from the cult that raised him—the fundamentalist sect that unleashed Armageddon and decimated the world’s population. Desperately, he searches for a place where the cult can’t get their hands on him, or more importantly, on the bioweapon they infected him with. But when cornered by monsters born from the destruction, Benji is rescued by a group of teens from the local Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, affectionately known as the ALC. The ALC’s leader, Nick, is gorgeous, autistic, and a deadly shot, and he knows Benji’s darkest secret.

When Ruby woke up on her tenth birthday, something about her had changed. Something alarming enough to make her parents lock her in the garage and call the police. Something that got her sent to Thurmond, a brutal government "rehabilitation camp." She might have survived the mysterious disease that killed most of America's children, but she and the others emerged with something far worse: frightening abilities they cannot control. Now sixteen, Ruby is one of the dangerous ones.

There are still countless tales of the Scythedom to tell. Centuries passed between the Thunderhead cradling humanity and Scythe Goddard trying to turn it upside down. For years humans lived in a world without hunger, disease, or death with Scythes as the living instruments of population control. Neal Shusterman—along with collaborators David Yoon, Jarrod Shusterman, Sofía Lapuente, Michael H. Payne, Michelle Knowlden, and Joelle Shusterman—returns to the world throughout the timeline of the Arc of a Scythe series.

Fourteen-year-old Vega Jane lives in the village of Wormwood, where life is nasty, brutish, and short. Villagers have been told that there is nothing outside of Wormwood except for the Quag, a foul forest filled with terrifying beasts. No one comes, no one goes, and Wormwood has stayed this way for generations. Until Vega's friend Quentin Herms disappears. Quentin leaves Vega a secret message hinting that there's a way out of Wormwood and something extraordinary on the other side.

Sixteen-year-old Nate is a Gem - a Genetically Engineered Medical Surrogate - created by Gathos City scientists as a cure for the elite from the fatal lung-rot ravaging the population. As a child, Nate was smuggled out of the laboratory where he was held captive and taken into the Withers - a quarantined, lawless region. He manages to survive by becoming a Tinkerer, fixing broken tech in exchange for food or a safe place to sleep. When he meets Reed, a kind and fiercely protective boy who makes his heart race, Nate finds the family he's always longed for.

What was once the Western United States is now home to the Republic, a nation perpetually at war with its neighbors. Born into an elite family in one of the Republic's wealthiest districts, 15-year-old June is a prodigy being groomed for success in the Republic's highest military circles. Born into the slums, 15-year-old Day is the country's most wanted criminal. But his motives may not be as malicious as they seem. From very different worlds, June and Day have no reason to cross paths - until the day June's brother, Metias, is murdered and Day becomes the prime suspect.

The shadow of Godolia's tyrannical rule is spreading, aided by their giant mechanized weapons known as Windups. War and oppression are everyday constants for the people of the Badlands, who live under the thumb of their cruel Godolia overlords. Eris Shindanai is a Gearbreaker, a brash young rebel who specializes in taking down Windups from the inside. When one of her missions goes awry and she finds herself in a Godolia prison, Eris meets Sona Steelcrest, a cybernetically enhanced Windup pilot.

It's Luka Kane's 16th birthday and he's been inside The Loop for over two years. Every inmate is serving a death sentence with the option to push back their execution date by six months if they opt into "delays", scientific and medical experiments for the benefit of the elite in the outside world. But rumors of a war on the outside are spreading amonst the inmates, and before they know it, their tortuous routine becomes disrupted. The government issued rain stops falling. Strange things are happening to the guards. And it's not long until the inmates are left alone inside the prison.

Lauren DeStefano makes a stellar debut with this chilling tale. The first installment of a planned trilogy, Wither introduces listeners to a bleak world where a mysterious disease kills most women by the age of 20 and men by the age of 25. Like many girls her age, 16-year-old Rhine has been captured and forced into marriage in an effort to keep the population growing. But, despite her new husband’s wealth, she wants nothing more than to escape her servitude and return home before time runs out.

Eighteen-year-old Brie Melrose is just a normal girl living in Outer Haven with the rest of her kind. Growing up in an orphanage, Brie never knew her parents, and her life was always destined to be simple. One day, a routine job turns into something much more, and Brie finds herself under the watchful eye of the Savants, the highest order of the Enhanced, blessed with supreme intellect and who consider emotions to be pointless. Soon, as threats she never even knew existed begin to close in, Brie learns that her world, and the city of Haven, isn't quite what she thought it was.

Sixteen-year-old Jimi knows people change, but nothing could prepare her for what's about to happen to her best friend, Del. Del is obsessed with becoming a chimera: a person who pays back-alley geneticists, known as "genies", to illegally splice animal genes into their own. The resulting physical changes have scared lawmakers into drafting legislation declaring chimeras officially nonpersons, so when Del goes missing, Jimi is desperate to find him before he alters himself forever.

Cassie McKinney has always believed in the Hive. Social media used to be out of control, after all. People were torn apart by trolls and doxxers. Even hackers - like Cassie's dad - were powerless against it. But then the Hive came. A better way to sanction people for what they do online. Cause trouble, get too many "condemns", and a crowd can come after you, teach you a lesson in real life. It's safer, fairer, and perfectly legal. Entering her senior year of high school, filled with grief over an unexpected loss, Cassie is primed to lash out.

One hundred and fifty years after a virus wipes out most of the world's population, Reagan Scott finds herself chosen for the State of the Union's fifth Culling. She will compete against 49 of the country's brightest girls. And then, of course, there are the 50 boys. She'll have to pair up with one for her shot at becoming the next Presidential Couple. Though the government truly means well, not everything is as it seems. She will be tested to the fullest extent while an evil storm brews.

In Elleon, your fate is determined by the color of your blood. In the aftermath of the insurrection that toppled the United States government, every sixteen year old must go through the same rite of passage. A serum is administered to change the color of their blood, determining their place in society. Those with purple blood will join the elite class, moving to the capital city to live in high-tech luxury with the rest of the ruling class. The blue bloods will continue to live their lives as they have- in their small agricultural towns with minimal technology.

Juliette has escaped to Omega Point. It is a place for people like her - people with gifts - and it is also the headquarters of the rebel resistance. She's finally free from The Reestablishment, free from their plan to use her as a weapon, and free to love Adam. But Juliette will never be free from her lethal touch. Or from Warner, who wants Juliette more than she ever thought possible.

Seventy-three years after the events of THE DEATH CURE, when Thomas and other immunes were sent to an island to survive the Flare-triggered apocalypse, their descendants have thrived. Sadina, Isaac, and Jackie all learned about the unkind history of the Gladers from The Book of Newt and tall tales from Old Man Frypan, but when a rusty old boat shows up one day with a woman bearing dark news of the mainland—everything changes.