Book picks similar to
Pulse by L.R. Burkard


christian
young-adult
post-apocalyptic
christian-fiction

Praying for Rain


B.B. Easton - 2019
    People like Rainbow Williams. Rain isn’t afraid of dying. In fact, she’s looking forward to it. If she can just outrun her pain until April 23, she’ll never have to feel it at all. “Supplies. Shelter. Self-defense.”Wes Parker has survived every horrible thing this life has thrown at him with nothing more than his resourcefulness and disarming good looks. Why should the end of the world be any different? All he needs are some basic supplies, shelter, and a sucker willing to help him out, which is exactly what he finds when he returns to his hometown of Franklin Springs.As society crumbles, dangers mount, and secrets refuse to stay buried, two lost souls are thrust together in a twist of fate—one who will do anything to survive and one who can’t wait to die. Perhaps, together, they can learn how to live.Before their time runs out.

Reign of Blood


Alexia Purdy - 2012
    Vampires and hybrids have overrun my world, once vibrant with life, but now a graveyard of death shrouded in shadows. I fight to survive; I fight for my mother and brother. The journey is full of turns that I am quite unprepared for. And I'm just hoping to make it to the next Vegas sunrise..."In a post-apocalyptic world, a viral epidemic has wiped out most of the earth’s population, leaving behind few humans but untold numbers of mutated vampires. April is a seventeen-year-old girl who lives in the remains of Las Vegas one year after the outbreak. She has become a ferocious vampire killer and after her family is abducted, she goes searching for them. What she finds is a new breed of vampire, unlike any she has seen before. Unsure of whom she can trust, she discovers that her view of the world is not as black and white as she once thought, and she's willing to bend the rules to rescue her family. But in trying to save them, she may only succeed in bringing her fragile world crashing down around her.

Breakdown


Katherine Amt Hanna - 2011
    But unresolved grief over his dead wife and baby and the horrors he witnessed as he traveled through a changed world have damaged him. He struggles to let go of his past, accept the healing kindness of those around him, and let love back into his life.Approximately 103,000 words, or 425 printed pages.

Into the Forest


Jean Hegland - 1996
    No single event precedes society's fall. There is talk of a war overseas and upheaval in Congress, but it still comes as a shock when the electricity runs out and gas is nowhere to be found. The sisters consume the resources left in the house, waiting for the power to return. Their arrival into adulthood, however, forces them to reexamine their place in the world and their relationship to the land and each other.Reminiscent of Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale, Into the Forest is a mesmerizing and thought-provoking novel of hope and despair set in a frighteningly plausible near-future America.

Zom-B


Darren Shan - 2012
    The series combines classic Shan action with a fiendishly twisting plot and hard-hitting and thought-provoking moral questions dealing with racism, abuse of power and more. This is challenging material, which will captivate existing Shan fans and bring in many new ones. As Darren says, "It's a big, sprawling, vicious tale...a grisly piece of escapism, and a barbed look at the world in which we live. Each book in the series is short, fast-paced and bloody. A high body-count is guaranteed!"

Sand


Hugh Howey - 2014
    A new one has been forged atop the shifting dunes. Here in this land of howling wind and infernal sand, four siblings find themselves scattered and lost.Palmer has never been the same since his father walked out twelve years ago. His elder sister, Vic, is trying to run away from the past; his younger brothers, Connor and Rob, are risking their lives to embrace it. His mother, left with nothing but anger, is just trying to forget.Palmer wants to prove his worth, not only to his family, but to himself. And in the barren, dune-covered landscape of his home, there is only one way to earn respect: sand-diving. Plunging deep below the desert floor in search of relics and scraps of the old world. He is about to embark on the most dangerous dive of his young life, aiming to become the first to discover the rumoured city below.Deep within the sand lies the key to bringing his family together – and tearing their world apart.

Day After Disaster


Sara F. Hathaway - 2014
    We're seeing a lot of social criticism through literature these days, across all genres, and I think this book definitely contributes to that trend. Movie-wise, this kind of story never goes out of style. I see it as being sort of like the Hunger Games meets the Day After Tomorrow." -MCS Film Review Team“How fragile everything had been. People walked through life everyday taking it all for granted, their cars, their cell phones, their lattes, their dramatic social issues and their medical problems.”She had started her day at her home in the mountains just like any other. There was nothing unusual about making the familiar drive down to Sacramento to go to work. Then in a flash Mother Nature decided it was time to create a new landscape. Follow the journey of a dynamic young woman, mother and wife, Erika, as she is thrust into a world turned upside down by a series of natural disasters. Alone in a city mutilated by disaster, she must navigate the path home, back to her family. Not knowing if they are alive or dead she must call on all of her survival instincts to navigate this broken environment. Will she make it home? Will her family still be alive? What will Mother Nature dish out next?

Joshua


John S. Wilson - 2012
    He had to get away, from the rioting, the lawlessness, the killing. Away from the brutal gangs that ruled the highways. Then there was the boy that he found along the way, an orphan with no place to go. He couldn’t leave the child behind; that would be murder. Together they had to make their way across the razed landscape of post collapse America, west to where there was safety, a chance to begin again. If only they survived the journey.

Collapse


Richard Stephenson - 2012
    With the American people deep in The Second Great Depression and two of the most powerful hurricanes on record to contend with, the United States is in no condition to deal with hidden terrorists on its soil, maniacal politicians, and the most formidable military threat the world has seen since the Third Reich. This is the story of three men from three very different walks of life: Howard Beck, the world's richest man, also diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome; Richard Dupree, ex-Navy SEAL turned escaped convict; and Maxwell Harris, a crippled, burned-out chief of police of a small Texas town. At first, they must overcome their own struggles and fight for their survival against impossible odds. In the end, the unlikely trio must band together to save their beloved country from COLLAPSE. Empires topple. Nations crumble. Civilization is fragile. In 2027, America will fall.

Night of the Purple Moon


Scott Cramer - 2012
    Her younger brother, Jordan, is having no problem fitting in and making friends.Everyone on Castine Island is anxiously awaiting the arrival of the purple moon, caused by a comet entering the Earth's atmosphere. Scientists expected this thrilling phenomenon and food companies are churning out purple-colored products in celebration of the comet’s arrival.The morning following the comet’s debut Abby and Jordan make a chilling discovery: every adult on the island is dead. The children of the island band together to withstand their new circumstances, and the older kids quickly learn a gripping truth about their own ticking clocks. It's only a matter of time before they succumb to the comet bacteria, but can they raise the next generation to survive?"Frightening and inspiring" - Kirkus Reviews. Riveting dystopian drama for all ages (13+)Alternate Cover edition for ISBN 9780615637082

The Pearl Savage


Tamara Rose Blodgett - 2011
    alternate cover edition of ASIN B00563HRPMSeventeen-year old princess, Clara Williamson, lives an old-fashioned existence in a biosphere of the future.When her sadistic mother, Queen Ada, betroths her to an abusive prince of a neighboring sphere, Clara determines to escape Outside, where savages roam free.Clara escapes tyranny only to discover the savages are not the only people who survived the cataclysmic events of one hundred forty years prior.Once Outside, Clara finds herself trapped, unable to return to the abusive life of the sphere while facing certain danger Outside.Can Clara find love and freedom with the peril that threatens to consume her?Cover art by Phatpuppyart.com

The Last Orphans


N.W. Harris - 2014
    In a span of mere hours, the entire adult population is decimated, leaving their children behind to fend for themselves and deal with the horrific aftermath of the freak occurrence. As one of the newly made elders in his small town, Shane finds himself taking on the role of caretaker for a large group of juvenile survivors. One who just happens to be Kelly Douglas—an out-of-his-league classmate—who, on any other day, would have never given Shane a second glance. Together, they begin their quest to find out why all of the adults were slaughtered. What they find is even more horrifying than anything they could have expected—the annihilation of the adults was only the beginning. Shane and his friends are not the unlucky survivors left to inherit this new, messed-up planet. No, they are its next victims. There is an unknown power out there, and it won’t stop until every person in the world is dead. A spine-tingling adventure that will have you gasping for breath all the way until the last page, The Last Orphans is the first book in an all-new apocalyptic series.

The Sky So Heavy (The Sky So Heavy, #1)


Claire Zorn - 2013
    Only it's not like any other day because, on the other side of the world, nuclear missiles are being detonated.When Fin wakes up the next morning, it’s dark, bitterly cold, and snow is falling. There’s no internet, no phone, no TV, no power, and no parents. Nothing Fin’s learned in school could have prepared him for this.With his parents missing and dwindling food and water supplies, Fin and his younger brother Max must find a way to survive all on their own.When things are at their most desperate, where can you go for help?

Surviving the Fog


Stan Morris - 2009
    Have you ever been to summer camp? What would you do if almost all of the adults left “for a few hours” and did not return? What would you do if the cell phones stopped working and your parents never showed up to take you home? What would you do if you discovered that the Earth was covered by a mysterious, dangerous brown fog? How would you survive the winter? How would you get more to eat?This is what Mike, John, Desi and the other campers have to contend with in Surviving the Fog.Warning: sexual situations, cursing, brief violence

The Electric Kingdom


David ArnoldDavid Arnold - 2021
    Among the survivors are eighteen-year-old Nico and her dog, on a voyage devised by Nico's father to find a mythical portal; a young artist named Kit, raised in an old abandoned cinema; and the enigmatic Deliverer, who lives Life after Life in an attempt to put the world back together. As swarms of infected Flies roam the earth, these few survivors navigate the woods of post-apocalyptic New England, meeting others along the way, each on their own quest to find life and love in a world gone dark. The Electric Kingdom is a sweeping exploration of art, storytelling, eternal life, and above all, a testament to the notion that even in an exterminated world, one person might find beauty in another.