Similar Books Query - YA Dystopian Romance

Except for "the Earth is pretty much dead," you could be describing The Hunger Games.

Replace "impossible journey to uncertain safety" with "waging an underdog's battle to achieve uncertain safety," and add in some supernatural talents with an SF flavor and you could be talking about Shade's Children, too. The romantic elements are a lot more downplayed, though, but I don't think they were unimportant from what I remember.

"The Silenced"
James something. I forget. Google it.

Check out this blog review - about halfway down the page...

GOOD book. Based on Nazi stuff during WWII, but basic dystopian YA... I read an ARC before it actually came out and highly enjoyed it.

(Random, unrelated story about google's amazingness: when I saw this post, I couldn't remember what the book was called, except that there was something about a rose in it, so I googled "rose dystopian YA novel" and the first hit was "The Silenced"... love google )

A bit old and probably a bit naff, but Christopher Pike's Whisper of Death comes to mind.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth came to mind immediately when I read your list.

dolores haze said:

Except for "the Earth is pretty much dead," you could be describing The Hunger Games.

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That's what I was going to say, too. There's another novel that's very similar, set in alternate time line in Japan, called Battle Royale. If you search for it on Amazon, it comes up along with a film that was made from the book.

dolores haze said:

Except for "the Earth is pretty much dead," you could be describing The Hunger Games.

Click to expand...

4th'ed

I loved this book to pieces. The first book in a long while I just couldn't put down.

dolores haze said:

Except for "the Earth is pretty much dead," you could be describing The Hunger Games.

Click to expand...

DMarie84 said:

That's what I was going to say, too. There's another novel that's very similar, set in alternate time line in Japan, called Battle Royale. If you search for it on Amazon, it comes up along with a film that was made from the book.

Click to expand...

*facepalm* BR. How could I forget BR? Probably because I wouldn't consider it YA, but still. That's another good example. Just be warned, it's not for the fainthearted. (And the translation's on the stiff and clunky side.)

However, I would definitely recommend it over The Hunger Games. It's hard to believe the central premise they both share -- a cut-throat competition where there's only supposed to be one survivor, period -- when the novel is told with a single narrator, in first person present. Without going into spoilers, I also thought the last 70 pages or so took a turn for the ridiculous, and I've never been so disgusted after read 'End of Book I' at the end of anything. (The rest of the book was okay enough, despite the lack of tension and the fact that (spoilerish) part of that lack of tension was that the heroine had pretty much everything handed to her when she needed it, or achieved it with minimal effort -- it was that last bit that nosedived.)