100 books like Mockingjay

The ‘zombie apocalypse’ scenario has been used for years by risk management professionals to make the examination of possible societal breakdowns more fun and/or interesting.

By focusing on a hazard people know, like hurricanes or wildfires, audiences come to the discussion with pre-existing biases and, in many cases, first-hand experience. This forces the communicator to counter such bias before getting to key messages.

There’s never been an actual zombie apocalypse (nor is there likely to ever be one…), which means the zombie scenario adequately ‘levels the field’. It forces audiences to think beyond their go-to assumptions and introduces levels of uncertainty and unknown that are typical of major disasters.

This book, written without obvious heroes and heroines, in a documentary style, makes a perfect proxy for a disaster exercise scenario. I also believe it does a great job illustrating how different forms of governance result in different response strategies, which… show more.

The unique underground setting hooked me from the start.

Ember is the last beacon of light in a darkened world, and now even its great lamps are at risk of going out. Friends Lina and Doon must find a way to keep them burning or face utter darkness and the end of civilization as they know it.

I loved the post-apocalyptic feel to this story, as well as all the mysteries and secrets lurking behind every dimly lit corner. 

Clarke is a natural leader who wants to take care of everyone but herself, and she will sacrifice her safety for others all in a world that defies the logic of the one she’d always known. She is frail and emotional, but tough when she needs to be, and she develops close bonds with just a few special people, while caring about all, even the ones she wants to shoot with a rifle or hang by a rope.

I liked this book, not just because I’m a fan of detective stories, whodunnits, and the like, but more so for the deep dive into the understanding of why the antagonist, Francis, became what he became.

It’s hard to make a character believable when that character does things that, to most of us, are unthinkable, but the author here succeeds and wraps it up into a decent read.

I love a good dystopian novel, and this hit all the right notes for me. At first, everything seems perfect in Jonas’s tightly-ordered world—only everyone is hiding something. Jonas is different, but he doesn’t know how.

I loved how thought-provoking The Giver was. It got me asking questions about what it means to be a part of a community, a friend, and a member of a family. What risks are we willing to take for the ultimate good, and what crosses the line?

I found Jonas’s story fascinating and felt genuinely concerned for him throughout the book.

This book opened in a graveyard and never let me go from there.

It’s not the sort of book I expected to like, let alone be wowed by or to be pleasing to a kid, but it works so well. Neil Gaiman’s writing is almost never stronger than it is here and every page kept me hooked to the point where I just wanted to keep reading, page after page.

Veronica Roth's Divergent is like a loyal companion that stuck by me during the unpredictable ride of middle school.

Tris Prior's journey felt strangely familiar, like a reflection of my own struggles—moving from vulnerability to discovering an inner strength I never knew existed. Roth crafted Tris into more than just a character; she became someone I looked up to, a personal source of motivation. The whole faction system, sorting people based on traits, hit close to home, echoing my own battles with fitting in.

In the maze of adolescence, Tris's rebellion and acceptance of her divergence felt like a reassuring guide through my own self-discovery. Divergent was groundbreaking for its time, making it a comfort and a source of courage when times got tough.

Veronica Roth's storytelling, paired with Tris's tenacity, turned a dystopian tale into a deeply personal journey through identity, resilience, and survival.

The graphic novel is one rush of scares and thrills. Set in the city of Barrows, Alaska where the sun doesn’t rise for thirty days during winter, the place becomes the perfect grounds (feasting, that is) for a group of vampires. And these monsters aren’t sparkling and pretty by any stretch. It’s up to Sheriff Eben Olemaun to survive with a group of townspeople, but the how and they why they do is one great story, aided by atmosphere illustrations.

You can’t get much more food-oriented in science fiction than a novel called The Hunger Games, and true to its name, food and food politics play a central role in the book’s theme. The book’s author, Suzanne Collins, uses juxtaposition and food politics throughout the series to highlight the difference between the haves and the have-nots. While all the books in the Hunger Games series highlight these discrepancies, it’s Collins’s second book Catching Fire where the differences are most pronounced. The feast in the Capitol, along with its potions to induce vomiting (and by extension, encourage more eating), stands out in particular: The reaction of the book’s main character, Katniss Everdeen, herself a poor girl from the Seam of District 12 makes this scene both comical and revolting.

I love the contrast of bleak desperation with gross opulence and excess that Collins creates in The Hunger Games.

The parallels between Panem and Rome turn what could otherwise be seen as a somewhat far-fetched or unlikely story into a reasonably plausible post-apocalyptic future possibility. I enjoyed the building of tension in the lead-up to the beginning of the games, as well as the explosive release and action when Katniss finally enters the arena.

I liked the way Collins creates an enemy in the very terrain of the arena itself so that, when coupled with the threat of the other contestants, the tension is heightened even further.