Book picks similar to
The Cost of Living Forever by Kat Kirst


dystopia
dystopian
mixed-feelings
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After the Ending


Lindsey Sparks (Fairleigh) - 2013
     They may have survived the apocalypse, but the Virus changed them... Grad student Dani O'Connor won't let a cross-country move end her closest friendship. But when a mysterious virus consumes the world and Dani, herself, falls violently ill, she fears she'll never see her loved ones again. After her fever finally breaks, she barely recognizes the devastated world around her. Everyone is dead. Dani is all alone. Or so she thinks... As a bartender, Zoe is used to dealing with hotheads and dirtbags, but nothing could have prepared her for the twisted thoughts of her fellow survivors. Her family is gone, and anyone left alive in the world is either sick, crazy, or changed...like her. As her newfound super senses gain strength, Zoe must learn to control them before she loses herself to madness completely. Perilous terrain spans the distance between them, and deranged survivors lurk in dark corners everywhere. Can Dani and Zoe overcome deadly attacks and unseen dangers in order to find each other? Or will they lose their way--and their lives--along the journey? After The Ending is the first book in the evocative, superpowered post-apocalyptic adventure, The Ending Series. If you like unbreakable friendships, gritty dystopian settings, and a touch of romance, then you'll love Lindsey Pogue and Lindsey Fairleigh's heart-wrenching tale. Buy After The Ending to embark on a supernatural survival story today! THE ENDING SERIES After The Ending Into The Fire Out Of The Ashes Before The Dawn The Ending Beginnings: A Collection of Stories World Before: A Collection of Stories

This Mortal Coil


Emily Suvada - 2017
    Her father was the world's leading geneticist, and humanity's best hope of beating a devastating virus. Then, hidden beneath Cole's genehacked enhancements she finds a message of hope: Lachlan created a vaccine.Only she can find and decrypt it, if she can unravel the clues he left for her. The closer she gets, the more she finds herself at risk from Cartaxus, a shadowy organization with a stranglehold on the world's genetic tech. But it's too late to turn back.There are three billion lives at stake, two people who can save them, and one final secret that Cat must unlock. A secret that will change everything.

The 5th Wave


Rick Yancey - 2013
    After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one.Now, it's the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth's last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie's only hope for rescuing her brother-or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up.

Origins


Kristen Middleton - 2012
    Seventeen year old Cassandra Wild thought living in the chaos of her mother’s home daycare and dealing with her developing feelings for Bryce, her new Martial Arts’ instructor, was a struggle, until the night her world turned upside down.When an untested vaccine kills more than just a rampant flu virus, Cassie learns how to survive in a world where the dead walk, and the living…run!

Until the End of the World


Sarah Lyons Fleming - 2013
    After all, she’s been on a self-imposed losing streak since her survivalist parents died: she’s stopped painting, broken off her engagement to Adrian and dated a real jerk. Rectifying her mistakes has to wait, however, because Cassie and her friends have just enough time to escape Brooklyn for her parents’ cabin before Bornavirus LX turns them into zombies, too. This is difficult enough, but Cassie’s tag along ex-boyfriend and her friend’s bratty sister have a knack for making everything, even the apocalypse, more unpleasant. When the two attract a threat as deadly as the undead to their safe haven, Cassie’s forced to see how far she’ll go to protect those she loves. And it’s a lot farther than she’d anticipated. This, coupled with Adrian’s distant voice on Safe Zone Radio and, of course, the living dead, threaten to put Cassie right back into the funk she just dragged herself out of. Survival’s great and all, especially when you have leather armor, good friends and home-brewed beer, but there’s something Cassie must do besides survive: tell Adrian she still loves him. And to do that, Cassie has to find faith that she’s stronger than she thinks, she’s still a crack shot and true love never dies.

The Extinction Trials


S.M. Wilson - 2018
    Sacrifice. Survival.Welcome to the Extinction Trials.In Stormchaser and Lincoln's ruined world, the only way to survive is to risk everything. To face a contest more dangerous than anyone can imagine. And they will do anything to win.But in a land full of monsters - human and reptilian - they can't afford to trust anyone. Perhaps not even each other...

The Complex


C. Zaragoza - 2012
    Isolated and quarantined for over a decade, sixteen-year-old Helena lives in a virtual utopia run by a council of doctors bent on saving the world from a fatal and almost incurable disease. The pandemic has been contained, but she and hundreds of others are still waiting to be cured. Helena dreams of returning to the outside world and leaving behind the heavily regulated world of the Eyam Complex, a place where everything runs according to plan…until one fateful morning. Things begin to change in the complex. And after everything dear to Helena—her father, her brother, and her boyfriend—is taken away, she finally gets what she wants. But life on the outside isn’t what Helena expected. Never in her wildest dreams did Helena think that she’d leave Eyam only to become so desperate to get back in.

You Are Mine


Janeal Falor - 2013
    She will always be owned by a warlock. She will never have freedom. She will always do what her warlock wishes, regardless of how inane, frivolous, or cruel it is. And if she doesn’t follow the rules, she will be tarnished. Spelled to be bald, inked, and barren for the rest of her life—worth less than the shadow she casts.Then her ownership is won by a barbarian from another country. With the uncertainty that comes from belonging to a new warlock, Serena questions if being tarnished is really worse than being owned by a barbarian, and tempts fate by breaking the rules. When he looks the other way instead of punishing her, she discovers a new world. The more she ventures into the forbidden, the more she learns of love and a freedom just out of reach. Serena longs for both. But in a society where women are only ever property, hoping for more could be deadly.

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…

The Flight of the Silvers


Daniel Price - 2014
    The sky looms frigid white. The electricity falters. Airplanes everywhere crash to the ground. But the Givens are saved by mysterious strangers, three fearsome and beautiful beings who force a plain silver bracelet onto each sister’s wrist. Within moments, the sky comes down in a crushing sheet of light and everything around them is gone.Shielded from the devastation by their silver adornments, the Givens suddenly find themselves elsewhere, a strange new Earth where restaurants move through the air like flying saucers and the fabric of time is manipulated by common household appliances.Soon Hannah and Amanda are joined by four other survivors from their world—a mordant cartoonist, a shy teenage girl, a brilliant young Australian, and a troubled ex-prodigy. Hunted by enemies they never knew they had and afflicted with temporal abilities they never wanted, the sisters and their companions begin a cross-country journey to find the one man who can save them—before time runs out.

Brightly Burning


Alexa Donne - 2018
    An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.Seventeen-year-old Stella Ainsley wants just one thing: to go somewhere—anywhere—else. Her home is a floundering spaceship that offers few prospects, having been orbiting an ice-encased Earth for two hundred years. When a private ship hires her as a governess, Stella jumps at the chance. The captain of the Rochester, nineteen-year-old Hugo Fairfax, is notorious throughout the fleet for being a moody recluse and a drunk. But with Stella he’s kind. But the Rochester harbors secrets: Stella is certain someone is trying to kill Hugo, and the more she discovers, the more questions she has about his role in a conspiracy threatening the fleet.

Edgewood


Karen McQuestion - 2012
    Before long Russ discovers he's developed incredible superpowers, and he’s not the only one. Three other young people—beautiful Mallory, arrogant Jameson, and mysterious Nadia—have had the same experience and all of them now have powers of their own. Mallory can control peoples’ minds, Jameson moves objects with his thoughts, and Nadia has empathic abilities.At first the four relish their newfound gifts, but things become serious when they learn they are being hunted by an organization that wants them for its own nefarious purposes. When Russ’s family is threatened, he’s forced into action. What transpires will change all of them in ways they never imagined.

Nerve


Jeanne Ryan - 2012
    But whoever's behind the game knows exactly what she wants, enticing her with lustworthy prizes and a sizzling-hot partner. With Ian on her team, it's easy to agree to another dare. And another. And another. At first it's thrilling as the Watchers cheer them on to more dangerous challenges. But suddenly the game turns deadly. Will Vee and Ian risk their lives for the Grand Prize dare, or will they lose NERVE?

Above World


Jenn Reese - 2012
    But after centuries spent hidden from the Above World, her colony’s survival is in doubt. The Kampii’s breathing necklaces are failing, but the elders are unwilling to venture above water to seek answers. Only headstrong Aluna and her friend Hoku are stubborn and bold enough to face the terrors of land to search for way to save their people. But can Aluna’s warrior spirit and Hoku’s tech-savvy keep them safe? Set in a world where overcrowding has led humans to adapt—growing tails to live under the ocean or wings to live on mountains—here is a ride through a future where greed and cruelty have gone unchecked, but the loyalty of friends remains true.

The Glittering Court


Richelle Mead - 2016
    But to do that, she must join the Glittering Court.Both a school and a business venture, the Glittering Court is designed to transform impoverished girls into upper-class ladies who appear destined for powerful and wealthy marriages in the New World. Adelaide naturally excels in her training, and even makes a few friends: the fiery former laundress Tamsin and the beautiful Sirminican refugee Mira. She manages to keep her true identity hidden from all but one: the intriguing Cedric Thorn, son of the wealthy proprietor of the Glittering Court.When Adelaide discovers that Cedric is hiding a dangerous secret of his own, together they hatch a scheme to make the best of Adelaide’s deception. Complications soon arise—first as they cross the treacherous seas from Osfrid to Adoria, and then when Adelaide catches the attention of a powerful governor.But no complication will prove quite as daunting as the potent attraction simmering between Adelaide and Cedric. An attraction that, if acted on, would scandalize the Glittering Court and make them both outcasts in wild, vastly uncharted lands…