Book picks similar to
The Acquisition (The Classified Series, #1) by Emily Mitchell
dystopian
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young-adult
general-library
Darkness Falls
Jessica Sorensen - 2012
The Colony is hidden deep underground, far away from the vampires—humans that were transformed by the disease. The vampires are hideous, starving, and they will kill any human they come across.Seventeen-year-old Kayla is a Bellator, a warrior that protects The Colony. In order to survive, there are three rules she must follow:Rule #1—Never go out after dark.Rule #2—Always carry a weapon.Rule #3—No matter what, never EVER get bitten.But what happens when the rules Kayla has always lived by can no longer apply? The Highers run The Colony and accept nothing less than perfection. One slip up can mean death. Kayla has always worked hard to follow the rules and strive for perfection. But during a moment of weakness, she lets her imperfections show. Her punishment is worse than death. She is chosen for The Gathering and is thrown out into a world full of starving vampires. No one has ever survived The Gathering, at least that’s what Kayla’s been told. But when she runs into a group who insist they were once part of The Gathering, Kayla discovers the Highers have been keeping secrets. Secrets that could lead to a cure.
What's Left of Me
Kat Zhang - 2012
But I do.Eva and Addie started out the same way as everyone else—two souls woven together in one body, taking turns controlling their movements as they learned how to walk, how to sing, how to dance. But as they grew, so did the worried whispers. Why aren’t they settling? Why isn’t one of them fading? The doctors ran tests, the neighbors shied away, and their parents begged for more time. Finally Addie was pronounced healthy and Eva was declared gone. Except, she wasn’t . . .For the past three years, Eva has clung to the remnants of her life. Only Addie knows she’s still there, trapped inside their body. Then one day, they discover there may be a way for Eva to move again. The risks are unimaginable-hybrids are considered a threat to society, so if they are caught, Addie and Eva will be locked away with the others. And yet . . . for a chance to smile, to twirl, to speak, Eva will do anything.
Damselfly
Jennie Bates Bozic - 2013
Isolated in a compound amidst the forests of Denmark, Lina has grown up aware of only one purpose: learn how to survive in a world filled with hawks, bumblebees, and loneliness. However, on the eve of her sixteenth birthday, she discovers that she’s not the only teenager her size. Six 'Toms' were created shortly after Lina, and now her creators need to prove to the world that tiny people are the next logical step in human evolution. In other words, they need to prove that reproduction is possible.Um. No thanks. Lina's already fallen in love with a boy she met online named Jack. Only he has no idea that thumbelina1847 could literally fit inside his heart.When her creators threaten to hurt Jack unless she chooses a husband from among the ‘Toms’, Lina agrees to star in a reality TV series. Once the episodes begin to air, the secret of her size is out. Cut off from any contact with the outside world, Lina assumes Jack is no longer interested. After all, what guy would want to date a girl he can’t even kiss?Slowly, very slowly, she befriends the six young men who see her as their only ticket to happiness. Perhaps she can make just one guy’s dream of love and companionship come true. But her creators have a few more twists in store for her that she never thought possible. She’s not the only one playing to the cameras.
The Rift Uprising
Amy S. Foster - 2016
Trained from the age of fourteen, Ryn can run faster, jump farther, and fight better than a Navy SEAL—which is good when you’re not sure if a laser-wielding Neanderthal or an axe-wielding Viking is trying to make it through the Rift and into her world.But the teenager’s military conditioning and education have not prepared her for the boy who crosses through—a confused young man, seemingly lost and alone. Because while there’s an immediate physical attraction, it’s his intelligence and curiosity that throws Ryn off balance. The stranger asks disturbing questions about the Rift that Ryn herself has never considered—questions that lead her to wonder if everything about her life and what she’s been told these past six years has been a lie. Are the Rifts as dangerous as her leaders say? Should her people really try to close them . . . or learn how to travel through them?
Dark Inside
Jeyn Roberts - 2011
An inner rage has been released and some people cannot fight it. For those who can, life becomes an ongoing battle to survive - at any cost!
Skylark
Meagan Spooner - 2012
For two hundred years the city has sustained this barrier by harvesting its children's innate magical energy when they reach adolescence. When it’s Lark’s turn to be harvested, she finds herself trapped in a nightmarish web of experiments and learns she is something out of legend itself: a Renewable, able to regenerate her own power after it’s been stripped.Forced to flee the only home she knows to avoid life as a human battery, Lark must fight her way through the terrible wilderness beyond the edge of the world. With the city’s clockwork creations close on her heels and a strange wild boy stalking her in the countryside, she must move quickly if she is to have any hope of survival. She’s heard the stories that somewhere to the west are others like her, hidden in secret—but can she stay alive long enough to find them?
The Forsaken
Lisa M. Stasse - 2012
(the super-country that was once Mexico, the U.S., and Canada), Alenna learned at an early age to blend in and be quiet—having your parents taken by the police will do that to a girl. But Alenna can’t help but stand out when she fails a test that all sixteen-year-olds have to take: The test says she has a high capacity for brutal violence, and so she is sent to The Wheel, an island where all would-be criminals end up.The life expectancy of prisoners on The Wheel is just two years, but with dirty, violent, and chaotic conditions, the time seems a lot longer as Alenna is forced to deal with civil wars for land ownership and machines that snatch kids out of their makeshift homes. Desperate, she and the other prisoners concoct a potentially fatal plan to flee the island. Survival may seem impossible, but Alenna is determined to achieve it anyway.
Beyond
Maureen A. Miller - 2012
College beckons, as does her dream of becoming an engineer. On an early evening walk, her cocker spaniel charges into the woods on the other side of the pond. Aimee trails after him, and in the stillness of that forest the unthinkable happens. She becomes paralyzed and watches in horror as her hands vanish before her eyes. Waking to the sound of voices, Aimee realizes that she has been kidnapped. Little does she know how far away from home she is, though. In an attempt to flee her captors, she launches from their confines only to freeze at the view outside the window. The sky is black and filled with stars, and in the distance is a familiar blue globe. The planet Earth. A group of humans forced to flee their planet after an epidemic destroyed their civilization now travel the galaxies in search of an antidote. Retrieving samples of plant life from every solar system, on this occasion Aimee was accidentally seized instead. Aimee must learn to avoid the advances of an awkward young scientist who seems intent on dissecting her, as her own fascination turns to the exotic young warrior, Zak. Having fallen in love with Zak, she is now torn with the decision to return to Earth or live beyond the stars.
The Last Bastion of the Living
Rhiannon Frater - 2012
Vanguard Maria Martinez has lived her entire life within the towering walls. Her only refuge from the overcrowded streets, rolling blackouts, and food shortages is in the arms of Officer Dwayne Reichardt. Then Maria is summoned to meet with a mysterious representative from the Science Warfare Division and is offered the opportunity to finally destroy the Inferi Scourge and reclaim the land and resources in the valley beyond the wall. If she succeeds, the city may be saved. But if she fails, humanity faces extinction…
Rush
Eve Silver - 2013
She wakes up fully healed in a place called the lobby - pulled from her life, through time and space into some kind of game in which she and a team of other teens are sent on missions to eliminate the Drau, terrifying and beautiful alien creatures. There are no practice runs, no training, and no way out. Every moment of the game is kill or be killed, and Miki has only the questionable guidance of Jackson Tate, the team's alluring and secretive leader. He evades her questions, holds himself aloof from the others, and claims it's every player for himself. But when he puts himself at risk to watch Miki's back, he leaves her both frustrated and fascinated. Jackson says the game isn't really a game, that what Miki and her new teammates do now determines their survival. And the survival of every other person on the planet. She laughs. He doesn't. And then the game takes a deadly and terrifying turn.
Elemental Thief
Rachel Morgan - 2018
Outlawed magic. A heist that’s about to change everything.
In a near-future city shielded from the destructive elemental magic that rages through the wastelands, seventeen-year-old Ridley steals from the wealthy and secretly gives to those in need—which is far less of a crime than the other thing she spends her free time doing: using magic. When the stranger who follows her home after her latest heist ends up murdered in the alley behind her apartment, everything starts going wrong. Her best friend is accused of the crime, and the guy who set him up is someone Ridley would rather stay far away from. Archer Davenport is heir to the city’s largest fortune. He represents everything Ridley hates—and that was before he landed her best friend in prison. He’s also the guy she just stole from. Though Ridley would prefer to keep her distance, she’s about to find herself spending a whole lot more time with Archer. Because that ancient artifact she just stole? Turns out it could unlock secrets that will put many lives in danger. Now Ridley and Archer will have to put their differences aside in order to uncover their true enemy and keep that information from winding up in the wrong hands. A brand new urban fantasy series with a dystopian flavor!
Z for Zachariah
Robert C. O'Brien - 1974
The world as she once knew it is gone, ravaged by a nuclear war that has taken everyone from her. For the past year, she has lived in a remote valley with no evidence of any other survivors. But the smoke from a distant campfire shatters Ann's solitude. Someone else is still alive and making his way toward the valley. Who is this man? What does he want? Can he be trusted? Both excited and terrified, Ann soon realizes there may be worse things than being the last person on Earth.
The Stars Never Rise
Rachel Vincent - 2015
Her town's population has been decimated by soul-consuming demons, and souls are in short supply. Watching over her younger sister, Mellie, and scraping together food and money are all that matters. The two of them are a family. They gave up on their deadbeat mom a long time ago.When Nina discovers that Mellie is keeping a secret that threatens their very existence, she'll do anything to protect her. Because in New Temperance, sins are prosecuted as crimes by the brutal Church and its army of black-robed exorcists. And Mellie's sin has put her in serious trouble.To keep them both alive, Nina will need to trust Finn, a fugitive with deep green eyes who has already saved her life once and who might just be an exorcist. But what kind of exorcist wears a hoodie?Wanted by the Church and hunted by dark forces, Nina knows she can't survive on her own. She needs Finn and his group of rogue friends just as much as they need her.
Rift
Andreas Christensen - 2014
The RIFT Saga begins here.In the ruins of what was once North America lays the Covenant, a nation forged by the iron will of the Moon people, who descended from their dusty refuge on the Moon after the Fall. The Moon people are wealthy, ruled by a strong government who protects its citizens from the dangers from outside their borders. Their greatest achievement is having learned the secret of immortality, and every citizen has the opportunity to live nearly forever if they choose to, a life of riches and abundance.The English are the descendants of the original inhabitants of this place, and they live very different lives from that of the Moon people. They only live to serve the greater good, and citizenship is something few have the opportunity to earn. At the age of fifty all non-citizens are subjected to mandatory euthanasia. In order to maintain a sustainable society, they are told.Every year a number of girls and boys at the age of eighteen are selected for Service to the State. The brightest and most talented are sent to become Students. The strong, the fighters and the athletes become Janissaries, a band of soldiers protecting the northern border from the enemies of the Covenant. The Wardens, a secretive organization known to operate far to the west, near the Rift, which makes up the border to the wastelands, sometimes choses one or two initiates, but nobody knows what becomes of them. And then there is the Corpus, where the whip rules and backs are bent.Those who complete their Service, may become citizens. And although they will never be equal to the Moon people, they will have access to all the riches and opportunities granted by the Covenant leadership to its citizens.As Sue is nearing Selection Day, she secretly hopes to be chosen, despite having to leave her mother and brother behind. She doesn't crave glory or wealth though. A man or woman with citizen status can do a lot of good, and although few return to their home towns, Sue hopes to return to give her family a better life on the other side of Service.But the Covenant is rotten to the core, and as she begins to learn its secrets, Sue must question everything she has always taken for granted. Soon she will find herself in dire peril, for she has seen the truth and there will be no turning back after that...This science fiction dystopian trilogy is set more than two centuries after the events of Exodus, in a future dystopian society forged from the ashes of global disaster."Mr. Christensen has absolutely found his genre, and I hope he keeps the stories coming!"
Feed
Mira Grant - 2010
We had cured cancer. We had beaten the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED. Now, twenty years after the Rising, bloggers Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives—the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will get out, even if it kills them.