Book picks similar to
End of The World by Nesly Clerge
sci-fi
fantasy
thriller
dystopian
The School for Good Mothers
Jessamine Chan - 2022
She doesn’t have a career worthy of her Chinese immigrant parents’ sacrifices. What’s worse is she can’t persuade her husband, Gust, to give up his wellness-obsessed younger mistress. Only with their angelic daughter Harriet does Frida finally feel she’s attained the perfection expected of her. Harriet may be all she has, but she’s just enough.Until Frida has a horrible day.The state has its eyes on mothers like Frida — ones who check their phones while their kids are on the playground; who let their children walk home alone; in other words, mothers who only have one lapse of judgement. Now, a host of government officials will determine if Frida is a candidate for a Big Brother-like institution that measures the success or failure of a mother’s devotion. Faced with the possibility of losing Harriet, Frida must prove that she can live up to the standards set for mothers — that she can learn to be good.This propulsive, witty page-turner explores the perils of “perfect” upper-middle-class parenting, the violence enacted upon women by the state and each other, and the boundless love a mother has for her daughter.
Followers
Megan Angelo - 2020
Then Orla meets Floss ― a striving wannabe A-lister ― who comes up with a plan for launching them both into the high-profile lives they dream about. So what if Orla and Floss's methods are a little shady and sometimes people get hurt? Their legions of followers can't be wrong.Thirty-five years later, in a closed California village where government-appointed celebrities live every moment of the day on camera, a woman named Marlow discovers a shattering secret about her past. Despite her massive popularity ― twelve million loyal followers ― Marlow dreams of fleeing the corporate sponsors who would do anything to keep her on-screen. When she learns that her whole family history is based on a lie, Marlow finally summons the courage to run in search of the truth, no matter the risks.Followers traces the paths of Orla, Floss and Marlow as they wind through time toward each other, and toward a cataclysmic event that sends America into lasting upheaval. At turns wry and tender, bleak and hopeful, this darkly funny story reminds us that even if we obsess over famous people we’ll never meet, what we really crave is genuine human connection.
Burn Out
Kristi Helvig - 2014
One of the last survivors in Earth's final years, Tora yearns to escape the wasteland her planet has become after the sun turns "red giant," but discovers her fellow survivors are even deadlier than the hostile environment.Holed up in an underground shelter, Tora is alone--her brilliant scientist father murdered, her mother and sister burned to death. She dreams of living on a planet with oceans, plants, and animals. Unfortunately, the oceans dried out ages ago, the only plants are giant cacti with deadly spines, and her pet, Trigger, is a gun--one of the bio-energetic weapons her father created for the government before his conscience kicked in.When family friend, Markus, arrives with mercenaries to take the weapons by force, Tora's fury turns to fear when government ships descend in an attempt to kill them all. She forges an unlikely alliance with Markus and his rag-tag group of raiders, including a smart but quiet soldier named James. Tora must quickly figure out who she can trust, as she must choose between saving herself by giving up the guns or honoring her father's request to save humanity from the most lethal weapons in existence.
Some Fine Day
Kat Ross - 2014
The survivors were forced to retreat deep underground and build a new society.This is the story that sixteen-year-old Jansin Nordqvist has heard all of her life.Jansin grew up in a civilization far below the Earth’s surface. She’s spent the last eight years in military intelligence training. So when her parents surprise her with a coveted yet treacherous trip above ground, she’s prepared for anything. She’s especially thrilled to feel the fresh air, see the sun, and view the wide-open skies and the ocean for herself.But when raiders attack Jansin’s camp and take her prisoner, she is forced to question everything she’s been taught. What do her captors want? How will she get back underground? And if she ever does, will she want to stay after learning the truth?
Ashes
Ilsa J. Bick - 2011
. .An electromagnetic pulse flashes across the sky, destroying every electronic device, wiping out every computerized system, and killing billions.Alex hiked into the woods to say good-bye to her dead parents and her personal demons. Now desperate to find out what happened after the pulse crushes her to the ground, Alex meets up with Tom—a young soldier—and Ellie, a girl whose grandfather was killed by the EMP.For this improvised family and the others who are spared, it’s now a question of who can be trusted and who is no longer human.Author Ilsa J. Bick crafts a terrifying and thrilling post-apocalyptic novel about a world that could become ours at any moment, where those left standing must learn what it means not just to survive, but to live amidst the devastation.
The Last
Hanna Jameson - 2019
I feel bad about how we left it. Love you. But as he’s waiting in the lobby of the L’Hotel Sixieme in Switzerland after an academic conference, still mulling over how to respond to his wife, he receives a string of horrifying push notifications. Washington, DC has been hit with a nuclear bomb, then New York, then London, and finally Berlin. That’s all he knows before news outlets and social media goes black—and before the clouds on the horizon turn orange.Now, two months later, there are twenty survivors holed up at the hotel, a place already tainted by its strange history of suicides and murders. Those who can’t bear to stay commit suicide or wander off into the woods. Jon and the others try to maintain some semblance of civilization. But when the water pressure disappears, and Jon and a crew of survivors investigate the hotel’s water tanks, they are shocked to discover the body of a young girl.As supplies dwindle and tensions rise, Jon becomes obsessed with investigating the death of the little girl as a way to cling to his own humanity. Yet the real question remains: can he afford to lose his mind in this hotel, or should he take his chances in the outside world?
Ashfall
Mike Mullin - 2011
Most people don't know it's there. The caldera is so large that it can only be seen from a plane or satellite. It just could be overdue for an eruption, which would change the landscape and climate of our planet.For Alex, being left alone for the weekend means having the freedom to play computer games and hang out with his friends without hassle from his mother. Then the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, plunging his hometown into a nightmare of darkness, ash, and violence. Alex begins a harrowing trek to search for his family and finds help in Darla, a travel partner he meets along the way. Together they must find the strength and skills to survive and outlast an epic disaster.
Time Heist
Anthony Vicino - 2014
Nine years later, with less than a day remaining on his government allotted Life Tracker, Tom's ready to join her.But when his former partner, Alaina Raines, brings word that Wolfe has escaped prison and is gearing up for another heist, Tom must decide: Spend his last hours on Earth in a drug induced haze. Or return to the life he left behind to catch the man that broke him.For Tom, it's not about justice anymore. Only vengeance.Now, all he's got to do is catch Malcolm before the numbers catch him
Are you ready to join Tom on his quest to find his wife's killer?
Buy Time Heist today to start a thrilling adventure that'll have you on the edge of your seat until the very last page! Time Heist is the first book in The Firstborn Saga, featuring fast-paced action, thrilling suspense, and complex characters. If you like Jim Butcher, William Gibson, and Chuck Wendig, then you'll love this captivating post-apocalyptic adventure.
At Last Goodbye
Glynn James - 2011
Ten years after the apocalypse destroyed the world that she knew, a survivor returns to her home town, hoping to piece together the bits of her past that have troubled her so much ever since.Sometimes the past is best left behind us, but sometimes we all need to say goodbye."At last, goodbye" is a short story set in the world of the Diary of the Displaced novel series.
The Young World
Chris Weitz - 2014
Jefferson, the reluctant leader of the Washington Square tribe, and Donna, the girl he's secretly in love with, have carved out a precarious existence among the chaos. But when a fellow tribe member discovers a clue that may hold the cure for the Sickness, five teens set out on a life-altering road trip, exchanging gunfire with enemy gangs, escaping cults and militias, braving the wilds of the subway - all in order to save humankind.
Flare
Jonathan Maas - 2014
The sunlight blinds and burns instantly, and then kills within minutes. The radiation has also destroyed all of the earth's circuitry, leaving the nights dark and dangerous. TWO FIND HOPE AMIDST THE CHAOS Two survivors, a thousand miles apart, each hear a rumor of a distant safe haven that can withstand the sun. Zeke is a silent wanderer, Ash is a brilliant young man hiding a painful past, and neither know just what this place really is. To get there they must each travel through ravaged towns and over hundreds of miles of charred earth, and must do so under a sky waiting to kill them with every sunrise. But with the world's population dying off and humanity getting more and more violent as the days pass, their paths are destined to collide, because this unknown and unseen place might be the only hope remaining.
The Sunlight Pilgrims
Jenni Fagan - 2016
There's snow in Israel; the Thames is overflowing; and an iceberg separated from the Fjords in Norway is expected to drift just off the coast of Scotland. As ice water melts into the Atlantic, frenzied London residents evacuate by the thousands for warmer temperatures down south--but not Dylan. Grieving and ready to build life anew, he heads north to bury his mother's and grandmother's ashes on the Scottish islands where they once lived. Hundreds of miles away, twelve-year-old Estella and her survivalist mother, Constance, scrape by in the snowy, mountainous Highlands, preparing for a record-breaking winter. Living out of a caravan, they spend their days digging through landfills, searching for anything with restorative and trading value. When Dylan arrives in their caravan park in the middle of the night, life changes course for Estella and Constance. Though the weather worsens, his presence brings a new light to daily life, and when the ultimate disaster finally strikes, they'll all be ready. The Sunlight Pilgrims is a visionary story of courage and resilience in the midst of nature's most violent hour. It's by turns an homage to the portentous beauty of our natural world, and to just how strong we can be, if the will and the hope is there, to survive its worst.
The New Wilderness
Diane Cook - 2020
Nature.Bea’s five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away. The smog and pollution of the City—an over-populated, over-built metropolis where most of the population lives—is destroying her lungs. But what can Bea do? No one leaves the City anymore, because there is nowhere else to go. But across the country lies the Wilderness State, the last swath of open, protected land left. Here forests and desert plains are inhabited solely by wildlife. People are forbidden. Until now. Bea, Agnes, and eighteen others volunteer to live in the Wilderness State as part of a study to see if humans can co-exist with nature. Can they be part of the wilderness and not destroy it? Living as nomadic hunter-gatherers, this new community wanders through the grand country, trying to adhere to the strict rules laid down by the Rangers, whose job it is to remind them they must Leave No Trace. As the group slowly learns to live and survive on the unpredictable and often dangerous land, its members battle for power and control and betray and save each other. The farther they roam, the closer they come to their animal soul.To her dismay, Bea discovers that, in fleeing to the Wilderness State to save Agnes, she is losing her in a different way. Agnes is growing wilder and closer to the land, while Bea cannot shake her urban past. As she and Agnes grow further apart, the bonds between mother and daughter are tested in surprising and heartbreaking ways.Yet just as these modern nomads come to think of the Wilderness State as home, its future is threatened when the Government discovers a new use for the land. Now the migrants must choose to stay and fight for their place in the wilderness, their home, or trust the Rangers and their promises of a better tomorrow elsewhere.
Genesis
Michaelbrent Collings - 2013
Conversion is instant. Headshots just make them angry. And they’re getting smarter. Ken Strickland has made it through the first moments. But his family is still out there. Can he survive? Can he find them? Or will he become one more of the creatures that now rule our world?
Without
E.E. Borton - 2012
Mother Nature had been sending signs for three years, but most didn’t pay attention until she pulled the plug on everything. Nobody will forget where they were and what they were doing at 8:13 on that morning. They’re all still waiting for 8:14. Well, at least the ones that have made it so far. He was stuck in Atlanta traffic, making his way to work, when the world fell silent. His car, his radio, his phone, his watch, anything that needed a spark, a battery, or an outlet died. The silence didn’t last long and neither did she. He didn’t know if the yellow sundress was the first to die, but he does know that she wasn’t the last. Not even close. As aircraft fell out of the sky, panicked drivers lost control in the fast lane, and pace makers stopped keeping their rhythms, he got out of his car and popped the trunk. Most didn’t pay attention, but he did. And he knew what was coming. Three years earlier during the first city-wide blackout in Atlanta, he lost his Samantha to cowards who were never caught. Those looking to take advantage didn’t hesitate, wreaking havoc at every opportunity. It took less than an hour after the event for society to start its disintegration. He made a promise to himself never to feel that helpless again. He wasn’t a soldier or a cop, but he was one of the few that did have a plan. Get out of the city, get away from people, and don’t hesitate. May God have mercy on their souls, because he won’t.