24 Books to Read After ‘Sunrise on the Reaping’ Left You a Shell of a Human

If you’re inspired to dive back into the original Hunger Games series for a re-read, you can get the original trilogy and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes all in one place.

Panem has a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV…and the odds are against all who play.

Inesa lives with her brother in a half-sunken town, and unbeknownst to her, their mother has accrued an enormous debt. Enough to qualify one of her children for Caerus’s livestreamed assassination spectacle: the Lamb’s Gauntlet. Melinoë is a Caerus assassin, trained to track and kill the sacrificial Lambs. As Mel pursues Inesa across the wasteland, both girls begin to question everything, and both wonder if, against all odds, they might be falling in love.

In the year 2059, Paige Mahoney is a 19-year-old clairvoyant living in the criminal underworld of Scion London. When she is kidnapped and taken to the secret city of Oxford, she is imprisoned and her life changes forever. Fans of The Hunger Games will be frantically turning the pages as Paige emerges as the unlikely hero of her people.

Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are the stars of the Chain-Gang All-Stars, part of the Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly popular profit-raising program in America’s private prison industry. Prisoners are com­peting for the ultimate prize: their freedom. If all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches. As she prepares to leave, Thurwar considers how she might help preserve the other prisoners’ humanity in defiance of these so-called games. But CAPE’s corporate own­ers will stop at nothing to protect their status quo.

Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her.

After you finish Klara and the Sun (probably in a single sitting—it’s that good) you’ll be left questioning humanity, existence, and what it truly means to love.

After the glaciers melted, Nonie, her family, and their research friends stayed in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. They work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honors all they’ve saved.

On the romantic-thrilling side, this novel takes place in a society that matches people with their “perfect soulmate” based on DNA tests and a quick mouth swab. But what happens when your soulmate isn’t all you thought they’d be? Exploring secrets and the dark side of “perfect,” you won’t be able to put this psychological thriller down.

Strikers are loyal with unparalleled, deadly fighting skills. They’re willing to do anything―including sacrifice their own lives―to defend Mara, the world’s last free nation. But to the very people she protects, Talin is seen as an outcast first and a Striker second. No matter what others think, Talin lets nothing distract her from keeping the evil Federation at bay. Until a mysterious prisoner shows up and disrupts Talin’s entire world. The clock is ticking for Talin to unravel the prisoner’s secrets and discover whether he’s the weapon that will save―or destroy―them all.

In a world where human cloning exists and society is divided by the ethics and nature of it, Constance “Con” D’Arcy is gifted a clone of herself. But when something goes wrong and her original self dies, she starts a new life as her clone, with no memory of how she got there. A captivating mystery with twists, turns, and thrills, this is one you won’t be able to put down until you know how it ends.

Set in a contemporary fantasy wolrd, Bryce Quinlan wants justice for the murders of her best friends. Teaming up with Hunt Athalar, who is a Fallen angel, they search deep within Crescent City for a power that could threaten their entire existence. Sarah J. Maas has done it again with romance, thrill, and mystery.

After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack on campus. A mysterious teenage mage attempts to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw. The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory: the night her mother died, a Merlin was at the hospital. She’ll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even infiltrate a secret society as one of their initiates.

Taking place in Lagos, this story follows Obinna and Eze, two former friends who have reunited and live completely different lives. Eze’s visit disrupts Obinna’s orderly routine and puts other aspects of his life at risk in their world where men are constantly under surveillance. If it was up to me, I’d say that anything by Ngozi Adichie is an instant classic.

Ever since the first Storm wreaked havoc on civilization, seventeen-year-old Liz Flannery has been holed up in an abandoned bookstore. But another earth-shattering Storm is coming. One night, a stranger named Maeve breaks into the bookstore, looking for shelter. Maeve has what Liz needs—the skills to repair the store before the next climate disaster strikes—and Liz reluctantly agrees to let her stay. As the girls grow closer and undeniable feelings spring up between them, they realize that they face greater threats than the impending Storm.

Taking place in 1345 China under Mongol rule, this story follows two siblings who find their way toward different fates. When the beloved son dies, the daughter takes over his identity in order to survive. A story of fate and second chances, this novel is a striking fantasy of war, love, and identity.

Six years ago, seventeen-year-old Mora survived the terrifying Skøl invasion. And now, not even her life is her own. You must pay the government for the right to survive. Colonized survivors like Mora face endless servitude, repaying the ‘debt’ of their years lived. Mora is resigned to her fate, finding glimmers of joy in her tentative friendship with another repayer, Kit. But then she finds out that Zako, the closest thing she has to a brother, is to be put to death. Mora and Kit conspire to smuggle Zako to safety. But their plan draws them into a dark mystery.

Irene is a spy for the Invisible Library and is sent to “alternative London,” a land where chaos and magic thrive alongside supernatural creatures, to retrieve a dangerous book. Irene and her assistant find the book to be stolen, leading to an adventure full of danger and mystery.

You know how we all read those dystopian novels when we were younger and wondered, “So all these teens just saved the world and lived happily ever after?” This novel explores the “after.” Set 10 years after a group of five teens defeated a dark enemy, this story follows them as they deal with the aftermath and discover that maybe the enemy never really left.

A deadly and unprecedented virus is spreading. But those who survive it experience long-term effects no one has ever seen before: utter contentment. People in power—who depend on malcontents and prey on the insecure to sell their products—know this new state of being is bad for business. Campaigns start up to convince people that being eternally happy is dangerous. The race to find a vaccine begins. Meanwhile, a growing movement of Recoverees plan ways to spread the virus as fast as they can, in the name of saving the world.

Based in a world 20 years after a pandemic collapsed society, Kirsten Raymonde is a part of a troupe that vows to keep the spirit of the arts alive, essentially, at the end of the world. When the troupe encounters a strange prophet, their entire existence is put in jeopardy. Come for the promising premise and stay for the strange twist that will leave you speechless.

In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds. That’s why they’re banished for their sixteenth year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage. But not all of them will make it home alive. As sixteen-year-old Tierney James’ own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes that it’s not just the elements they must fear. It’s not even the men who are waiting for a chance to grab one of the girls to sell on the black market. Their greatest threat may be each other.

Frida Liu is a struggling mother who turns to her daughter Harriet for comfort within her imperfect life. With a husband who pays too much attention to his mistress and Chinese immigrant parents who don’t deem her worthy enough, Frida finds great solace in Harriet—that is, until her surveillance-state government threatens to take Harriet away after one particular bad day. The School for Good Mothers is a page-turner that blends dystopian drama and the trials of parenthood in a way we never thought possible.