It’s been over 15 years since Suzanne Collins published the first book in The Hunger Games trilogy, a fact that staggers its original readers. The series’ dystopian setting, teen love triangle, and hierarchal societal structure were ideas that once dominated the young adult genre, but today The Hunger Games has built a larger legacy on its themes of class, media, youth, and survival. Here are a few titles, for readers young and old, that touch on similar ideas.
Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower and its sequel Parable of the Talents are definitive works in the science fiction genre. Set in the 2020s in California, Butler’s focus on climate, religion, and class has made her book series more relevant to the modern day than most speculative texts, demanding readers ask questions of themselves and their world as they journey through the world of The Parable series.
The young protagonist of Nancy Farmer’s The House of the Scorpion is as disposable as the tributes of The Hunger Games, as he is constantly reminded. Farmer explores a future where genetic cloning and organ transplant have made immortality functionally possible from the perspective of a child clone. She pulls no punches as she examines the consequences through her writing, no matter the age of her intended reader.
While it’s often treated as one of Ursula K le Guin’s less significant novels, The Eye of the Heron is nonetheless a fantastic example of speculative writing. It also holds a special place among le Guin’s titles as her first foray into writing female protagonists. Her hero, Luz, reckons with classicism and violent oligarchy, intense thematic conflicts she has in common with Katniss Everdeen.
A survivalist novel to its core, the graphic nature of Hatchet can make it a difficult book to read at times. From the plane crash at the start of the story to the climatic end, Gary Paulsen keeps his reader engaged with the cost of his protagonist’s life alone in the woods. There is a drive and a desperation at the heart of this book that will keep its narrative present in the readers’ mind long after they’ve finished.
From its dystopian vision of a future USA to its fatal elimination-style contest, Stephen King’s The Long Walk shares a lot of common ground with The Hunger Games despite predating its publication by nearly forty years. King’s depiction of a dystopia is, in some ways, more brutal than Collins’, but it maintains a graphic frankness that keeps its story grounded in all of the worst ways.
With a young, female protagonists facing impossible odds, Island of the Blue Dolphins is a classic of young adult literature. Like Hatchet and The Hunger Games, there is a focus on youth and survival at its core, themes only made stronger by the story’s real-world inspiration of Juana Maria, an indigenous woman who survived alone on an island for 18 years. Even for adult readers, it's a good reminder of what can be accomplished through grit and becoming attuned with nature.
This novel by Japanese author Koushun Takami has been cited as a possible inspiration for The Hunger Games series. It isn’t hard to see the resemblance. Battle Royale follows the story of a junior high-school class in a dystopian future where they are forced to fight to the death by the government. Takami’s depiction of violence, youth, and mortality has also earned the author comparisons to literary classic The Lord of the Flies.
Claire van Doren holds degrees in English literature and journalism as well as a certificate in LGBTQ+ studies from Arizona State University. She is a volunteer reader for Uncharted magazine, a publisher of genre fiction. Her writing has been published by Inner Worlds, Zocalo Public Square, and ASU News.
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