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BOOK LIST

Do Your Students Love The Hunger Games series? Here's What They Should Read Next

A list of thrilling dystopian fiction for young adults who love epic stories with plenty of intrigue.

By Scholastic Editors
April 10, 2025

Do Your Students Love The Hunger Games series? Here's What They Should Read Next

Many teenage readers are drawn to dystopian novels because they offer an escape from reality — as well as a thrilling story! The epic tales unfold at a breakneck pace with plot twists and surprises at the turn of every page.

With relatable characters and electrifying plot twists, this genre deals with themes that teens always find appealing. Many titles explore topics like relationships, identity, first loves, and rebellion against authority, which hook readers into a good book about a bad future. 

Plus, check out our best-selling books under $5 for grades 9–12

The heroes and heroines are sometimes ordinary—sometimes extraordinary—young people who find themselves caught up in life-changing mysteries, often involving seemingly perfect worlds that are revealed to be anything but. These characters face overwhelming odds and must deal with the consequences of their actions, no matter how devastating.

Readers who loved the books in The Hunger Games series will be gripped by the fifth book in the epic saga. Sunrise on the Reaping revisits Panem 24 years before the events of The Hunger Games, starting on the morning of the reaping of the Fiftieth Hunger Games, also known as the Second Quarter Quell. Add this must-have story to your classroom library and use this free reading guide to spark discussion, reflection, and analysis. 

Another current YA favorite is The Kill Factor by Ben Oliver. In the book, described as Black Mirror meets Squid Game, a brand-new game show offering 50 young offenders the chance of freedom has been greenlit. Little do they know, winning is their only chance of survival. The young offender with the most upvotes by the end is given both a second chance in society and a cash prize. For Emerson and her family, the prize is more than freedom. It could mean the chance to change her family’s circumstance and finally find a place in the society they’ve never been allowed into.

Explore more YA dystopian novels below. You can find all books and activities at The Teacher Store

 

Hunger Games Series

Paperback Book

Hunger Games: The Hunger Games

Grades 9 - 12
$11.24$14.99
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In the ruins of a place once known as North America, the twelve districts of Panem are forced to send one boy and one girl to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Paperback Book

Catching Fire

Grades 9 - 12
$11.24$14.99
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Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark have won the annual Hunger Games. But there are rumors of rebellion among the subjects, and Katniss and Peeta, to their horror, are the faces of that rebellion. 

Paperback Book

Mockingjay

Grades 9 - 12
$11.24$14.99
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The Capitol wants revenge against Katniss. And what's worse, President Snow has made it clear that no one else is safe either. Not Katniss's family, not her friends, not the people of District 12.

$12.74$16.99
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The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes will revisit the world of Panem sixty-four years before the events of The Hunger Games, starting on the morning of the reaping of the Tenth Hunger Games.

$20.99$27.99
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When you've been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for? As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes. Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

More Dystopian Titles

Paperback Book

The One

Grades 10 - 12
$5.99$7.99
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Since she entered the competition to become the next princess of Illea, America has struggled with her feelings for her first love, Aspen—and her growing attraction to Prince Maxon. Now she's made her choice... and she's prepared to fight for the future she wants.

Paperback Book

The Keeper

Grades 7 - 10
$8.24$12.99
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In order to leave Wormwood and discover the truth about her world, Vega and her best friend Delph must find a way to make it across a terrifying land of bloodthirsty creatures and sinister magic. But the Quag is worse than even Vega Jane's darkest imagining. 

Paperback Book

The Width of the World

Grades 7 - 10
$5.99$7.99
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For the first time, Vega and Delph find themselves among people who aren't governed by fear. But Vega starts to suspect that this new world might be even more dangerous than the treacherous place they left behind.

 

 

Paperback Book

The Bar Code Tattoo

Grades 8 - 10
$9.74$12.99
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The bar code tattoo. Everybody's getting it. It will make your life easier, they say. It will hook you in. It will become your identity. But what if you say no? What if you don't want to become a code?

 

 

Paperback Book

Uglies

Grades 10 - 12
$7.49$9.99
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In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. What could be wrong with that?

Paperback Book

Uglies: Pretties

Grades 10 - 12
$5.99$7.99
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Tally has finally become pretty. But beneath all the fun—the nonstop parties, the high-tech luxury, the total freedom—is a nagging sense that something's wrong. Something important. Then a message from Tally's ugly past arrives.

Hardcover Book

The Kill Factor

Grades 7 and up
$14.99$19.99
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A brand-new game show that offers young criminals the chance at freedom has been greenlit. Little do they know, winning is their only chance at survival. A captivating examination of the dark truths around the criminal justice system, Ben Oliver, critically acclaimed author of The Loop trilogy, delivers an action-packed thrill ride with deadly high stakes.

Paperback Book

The Heir

Grades 10 - 12
$5.99$7.99
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Twenty years ago, America Singer entered the Selection and won Prince Maxon's heart. Now the time has come for Princess Eadlyn to hold a Selection of her own.

Paperback Book

Uglies: Specials

Grades 10 - 12
$6.74$8.99
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Specials used to be a sinister rumor—frighteningly beautiful, dangerously strong, breathtakingly fast. And now, Tally has been turned into one of them: a superamped fighting machine, engineered to keep the uglies down and the pretties stupid.

Hardcover Book

Monarch Rising

Grades 9 - 12
$14.99$19.99
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Today is the day Jo Monarch has been wishing on the moon about her entire life. It's the day of the Lineup, when she could be selected to leave her life in the Ashes behind. The day she could move across the mountains to a glittering, rich future.

Paperback Book

The Last Book in the Universe

Grades 8
$6.74$8.99
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Civilization has been destroyed, except for the forbidden place called Eden. Yet one old man, the one they call Ryter, has a lot of crazy and wonderful ideas. Nobody remembers books, but Ryter is writing one—even though he knows he may be punished by death.

Hardcover Book

The Library of Broken Worlds

Grades 9 and up
$16.49$21.99
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With the world at the brink of war, Freida embarks on a journey to fulfill her destiny, one that pits her against an ancient war god. Her mission is straightforward: Destroy the god before he can rain hellfire upon thousands of innocent lives — if he doesn't destroy her first.

 

Paperback Book

Fahrenheit 451

Grades 9 - 12
$11.99$15.99
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Nowadays firemen start fires. Fireman Guy Montag loves to rush to a fire and watch books burn up. Then he meets a girl who tells him of a past when people were not afraid, and a professor who tells him of a future in which people can think, and Guy Montag realizes what he has to do.

Paperback Book

The House of the Scorpion

Grades 9 - 12
$9.71$12.95
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Matteo Alacran was not born; he was harvested. He is a boy now, but most consider him a monster, and he is threatened by a sinister cast of characters and surrounded by a dangerous army of bodyguards. Escape is the only chance Matt has to survive. 

Paperback Book

The Loop

Grades 9 - 12
$9.74$12.99
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It's Luka Kane's sixteenth birthday and he's been inside The Loop for over two years. Every inmate is serving a death sentence with the option to push back their execution date by six months if they opt into "Delays", scientific and medical experiments for the benefit of the elite in the outside world. But rumors of a war on the outside are spreading amongst the inmates, and before they know it, their tortuous routine becomes disrupted. The government issued rain stops falling. Strange things are happening to the guards. And it's not long until the inmates are left alone inside the prison.

Paperback Book

The Summer Prince

Grades 9 - 12
$9.74$12.99
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The lush city of Palmares Tres shimmers with tech and tradition. In the midst of this vibrant metropolis, June Costa creates art that's sure to make her legendary. But her dreams of fame become something more when she meets Enki, the bold new Summer King.

Paperback Book

The Forgetting

Grades 10 - 12
$9.74$12.99
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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.

Paperback Book

1984

Grades 11 - 12
$7.49$9.99
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Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell's chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, Orwell's narrative is more timely that ever.

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