Book picks similar to
The Culling by Tricia Wentworth
dystopian
young-adult
dystopia
romance
The Unidentified
Rae Mariz - 2010
It’s all a part of the Game; the alternative education system designed to use the addictive kick from video games to encourage academic learning. Everyday, a captive audience of students ages 13-17 enter the nationwide chain store-like Game locations to play.When a group calling themselves The Unidentified simulates a suicide to protest the power structure of their school, Kid’s investigation into their pranks attracts unwanted attention from the sponsors. As Kid finds out she doesn't have rights to her ideas, her privacy, or identity, she and her friends look for a way to revolt in a place where all acts of rebellion are just spun into the next new ad campaign.
The Vanishing Girl
Laura Thalassa - 2014
She can teleport anywhere in the world—London, Paris, her crush’s bedroom—wherever her dreams lead her. Ten minutes is all she gets, and once time’s up, she returns to her bed. It's a secret she’s successfully kept for the last five years. But now someone knows. A week after her eighteenth birthday, when frustratingly handsome Caden Hawthorne captures her, delivers her to the government, and then disappears before her eyes, Ember realizes two things: One, she is not alone. And two, people like her—teleporters—are being used as weapons. Dragged off to a remote facility where others like her live, Ember’s forced to pair up with her former captor, Caden, to learn how to survive inside until she can escape. Only Caden’s making escape seem less and less appealing.But even as Ember falls for the boy who got her into this mess, she knows that she is running out of time. Because the government has plans for those like her, and those plans might just cost Ember her life.
Eve
Anna Carey - 2011
Eighteen-year-old Eve has never been beyond the heavily guarded perimeter of her school, where she and two hundred other orphaned girls have been promised a future as the teachers and artists of the New America. But the night before graduation, Eve learns the shocking truth about her school's real purpose and the horrifying fate that awaits her.Fleeing the only home she's ever known, Eve sets off on a long, treacherous journey, searching for a place she can survive. Along the way she encounters Arden, her former rival from school, and Caleb, a rough, rebellious boy living in the wild. Separated from men her whole life, Eve has been taught to fear them, but Caleb slowly wins her trust... and her heart. He promises to protect her, but when soldiers begin hunting them, Eve must choose between true love and her life. In this epic new series, Anna Carey imagines a future that is both beautiful and terrifying.
The Rule of One
Ashley Saunders - 2018
Everyone follows the Rule of One. But Ava Goodwin, daughter of the head of the Texas Family Planning Division, has a secret—one her mother died to keep and her father has helped to hide for her entire life.She has an identical twin sister, Mira.For eighteen years Ava and Mira have lived as one, trading places day after day, maintaining an interchangeable existence down to the most telling detail. But when their charade is exposed, their worst nightmare begins. Now they must leave behind the father they love and fight for their lives.Branded as traitors, hunted as fugitives, and pushed to discover just how far they’ll go in order to stay alive, Ava and Mira rush headlong into a terrifying unknown.
Dealing in Dreams
Lilliam Rivera - 2019
That role brings with it violent throw downs and access to the hottest boydega clubs, but the sixteen-year-old grows weary of the life. Her dream is to get off the streets and make a home in the exclusive Mega Towers, in which only a chosen few get to live. To make it to the Mega towers, Nalah must prove her loyalty to the city's benevolent founder and cross the border in a search for a mysterious gang the Ashé Ryders. Led by a reluctant guide, Nalah battles other crews and her own doubts, but the closer she gets to her goal, the more she loses sight of everything—and everyone— she cares about.Nalah must do the unspeakable to get what she wants—a place to call home. But is a home just where you live? Or who you choose to protect?
Tainted
Alexandra Moody - 2014
All she has ever known are the artificial confines of underground fallout shelter, the ARC. Under the Council’s rule, ruthless officials roam the hallways, community comes first and everyone lives in fear of failing their annual testing. With one simple blood test you could be taken away without any warning or a word of goodbye.There are only a few people in the ARC who Elle truly cares about and she desperately tries to keep them at arm’s length away for fear of losing someone else. Especially, her best friend Sebastian who she denies her feelings for, even from herself. Chilling secrets and mysterious disappearances plague the ARC, but Elle would never dare to voice the forbidden questions that linger on her lips. That is until they take the wrong person.No one is truly safe in the ARC and Elle is about to experience her own personal apocalypse. With nothing left to lose she will risk everything to uncover the truth about the tainted.Will she find what she's looking for or are some secrets better left buried deep underground?Don't miss the first book in this young adult series!
XVI
Julia Karr - 2011
Nina is not one of them. Even though she has no choice in the matter, she knows that so long as her life continues as normal, everything will be okay.Then, with one brutal strike, Nina's normal is shattered; and she discovers that nothing that she believed about her life is true. But there's one boy who can help--and he just may hold the key to her past.But with the line between attraction and danger as thin as a whisper, one thing is for sure...For Nina, turning sixteen promises to be anything but sweet
The Forgetting
Sharon Cameron - 2016
Even your crimes.Nadia lives in the city of Canaan, where life is safe and structured, hemmed in by white stone walls and no memory of what came before. But every twelve years the city descends into the bloody chaos of the Forgetting, a day of no remorse, when each person's memories – of parents, children, love, life, and self – are lost. Unless they have been written.In Canaan, your book is your truth and your identity, and Nadia knows exactly who hasn't written the truth. Because Nadia is the only person in Canaan who has never forgotten.But when Nadia begins to use her memories to solve the mysteries of Canaan, she discovers truths about herself and Gray, the handsome glassblower, that will change her world forever. As the anarchy of the Forgetting approaches, Nadia and Gray must stop an unseen enemy that threatens both their city and their own existence – before the people can forget the truth. And before Gray can forget her.
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.
The Pioneer
Bridget Tyler - 2019
After all, she’s been training for as long as she can remember to be a cadet pilot in the International Space Agency. She’s dreamed of the day she and her family would leave Earth forever and begin life as pioneers on a new planet.But now she can’t stop thinking of everything that has gone wrong on their mission: the terrible accident that nearly destroyed their craft, that set their voyage back years, that killed her brother, that left her unable to fly…As Jo struggles to live with her grief and figure out who she’s going to be now, she falls in love with her new world. It isn’t hard. Jo’s team is camped out by a pristine, tumbling river at the base of a mountain range that looks like huge prisms buried in the prairie. The soring crystal peaks transform every sunset into rainbows full of colors human eyes have never seen before. And that’s just the beginning. Tau offers Jo and her family a lifetime of beauty and adventure.Jo throws herself into helping her team, lead by her commander mother, establish their community on this amazing new world. But just when she starts to feel like her old self again, she uncovers a devastating secret her mother has been keeping from her people. A secret that could destroy her family’s pioneering dreams…if they survive that long.With the fate of the pioneers in her hands, Jo must decide how far she’s willing to go to expose the truth — before the truth destroys them all.
Slumber
J.L. Weil - 2017
Everything Charlotte Winston thought she knew has been thrown out the window. From the moment she opens her eyes, the world she remembered ceases to exist, and in its place is a post-apocalyptic realm filled with unimaginable dangers. And one very smoking hot guy who has an uncanny ability to make her blood sing, then boil in a blink of an eye. Dash Darhk is everything her parents would hate. He’s six feet and two inches of dark temptation and a killer smile, that’s surely left a stream of broken hearts in his wake. But her parents are nowhere to be found. Charlotte is alone in this new world. Destroyed by a toxic mist, the land isn’t the only thing altered, but the inhabitants as well. As Charlotte begins the hunt for her family, gifts she’s never fathom awake inside her. And with the gifts come problems. Enormous ones. Charlotte is running out of options and places to hide. If she can’t figure out who to trust—and fast—she will lose more than her heart. Fans of Hunger Games, The 100, and Divergent will fall in love with Slumber. Featured in OK Magazine
The Fever Code
James Dashner - 2016
Families died, violence reigned, and man killed man.Next came WICKED, who were looking for an answer. And then they found the perfect boy.The boy’s name was Thomas, and Thomas built a maze.Now there are secrets.There are lies.And there are loyalties history could never have foreseen. This is the story of that boy, Thomas, and how he built a maze that only he could tear down.All will be revealed.
Possession
Elana Johnson - 2011
But no one makes Vi want to break the Rules more than Zenn ... and since the Thinkers have chosen him as Vi's future match, how much trouble can one kiss cause? The Thinkers may have brainwashed the rest of the population, but Vi is determined to think for herself.But the Thinkers are unusually persuasive, and they're set on convincing Vi to become one of them ... starting by brainwashing Zenn. Vi can't leave Zenn in the Thinkers' hands, but she's wary of joining the rebellion, especially since that means teaming up with Jag. Jag is egotistical, charismatic, and dangerous—everything Zenn's not. Vi can't quite trust Jag and can't quite resist him, but she also can't give up on Zenn.This is a game of control or be controlled. And Vi has no choice but to play.
Pawn
Aimee Carter - 2013
IF YOU GIVE UP EVERYTHING. For Kitty Doe, it seems like an easy choice. She can either spend her life as a III in misery, looked down upon by the higher ranks and forced to leave the people she loves, or she can become a VII and join the most powerful family in the country. If she says yes, Kitty will be Masked—surgically transformed into Lila Hart, the Prime Minister's niece, who died under mysterious circumstances. As a member of the Hart family, she will be famous. She will be adored. And for the first time, she will matter. There's only one catch. She must also stop the rebellion that Lila secretly fostered, the same one that got her killed and one Kitty believes in. Faced with threats, conspiracies and a life that's not her own, she must decide which path to choose—and learn how to become more than a pawn in a twisted game she's only beginning to understand.Previously titled Masked.
The Institute
Kayla Howarth - 2015
Always looking over your shoulder. The source of your fear? The Institute.Allira Daniels will do anything to keep her Defective brother safe from the Institute. They claim to protect Defectives, but it’s human nature to fear the unknown. Defectives are dangerous, they possess abilities that no human should be able to. To Allira and the rest of her family, the Institute seems more like a prison than the safe-haven they promote themselves to be. Protecting Shilah from that fate is their number one priority.When Allira stumbles across a car crash involving two of her school classmates, she ignores all of her father’s warnings of laying low and not drawing attention to herself. By doing so, she may have just caught the eye of the Institute. She’s not Defective, but what seventeen-year-old girl has the ability to pull two teenage boys away from a fiery rubble and walk away without a scratch? It would definitely be seen as suspicious.Allira and her family need to make decisions. Do they stay, or do they flee again? Will they be coming for her? Will her whole family come under investigation? Will they discover Shilah and his ability to predict the future?Are you Defective? The Institute is coming for you.