Readalikes: "The Hunger Games"

When fans of the popular YA dystopian trilogy The Hunger Games come to the library, they're often looking for a similar read. Since the bookshelves of libraries (and bookstores) are swimming with a vast array of dystopian fiction for the choosing, I usually try to narrow it down a bit by asking what it is, precisely, the reader liked about The Hunger Games. The action?  The politics?  The strong leading character?

Everyone's answer is different, of course. But one answer many fans give is that they like the Games themselves. Or, perhaps, not precisely the games -- but the rites of passages, and subsequent choices, that lead the characters into them.

The Hunger Games is not the only story to show a dystopian society's rite of passage lead to unintended consequences -- not only for the main characters, but for the worlds they inhabit. Here are three more to try:

Uglies - Scott Westerfeld

Tally Youngblood's sixteenth birthday is approaching, and she couldn't be more excited. Her whole life, she's been living with the "Uglies," the slang name given to the city's children. But once you hit sixteen, you get to become a "Pretty," undergoing a surgical procedure that transforms your appearance into one of beautiful perfection. She'll get to leave behind her old life and take up residence in Prettytown, where she'll be beautiful, popular, and able to fill her days with clothes, parties, and unending fun.

But then she meets Shay, a fellow Ugly who doesn't seem to understand how great being a Pretty will be. Much to Tally's surprise, Shay's planning to run away to escape her surgery. Shay, it turns out, has a suspicion that there's a price to pay to become a Pretty. And she thinks the people of the Smoke -- a group of protestors who have rejected the Pretty life -- may have the answer.

Tally won't go with her, but she wishes Shay the best -- at least until the governmental department of Special Circumstances step in and offer Tally a choice. They know about the Smoke, and they want to put an end to it. So if Tally ever wants to become a Pretty, she has to make a choice: follow Shay to the Smoke and betray her best friend and her new home to the authorities, or remain an Ugly forever.

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Atlantia - Ally Condie

Author Ally Condie is primarily known for her dystopian-esque trilogy Matched. But I liked this one better -- a standalone novel that tells the story of Rio, who has grown up alongside her twin sister, Bay, in the underwater city of Atlantia. Rio's always dreamed of leaving her world beneath the waves behind, and it looks like her chance has finally come. But when her sister uses their coming-of-age ceremony to escape the Below, she leaves Rio trapped in Atlantia -- with no way out.

Rio, already reeling from her mother's death several months before, now finds herself betrayed and alone in the Below. But then, Rio's used to being alone: she's had to hide her secret all her life. Rio is a siren, and if anyone were to discover her powers, everything would change.

Forming unexpected alliances with True, who also lost his best friend to the Above, Rio is determined to find a way to the surface. But then her mother's sister, Maire, shares secrets of Atlantia with Rio that she never could have expected -- and suddenly, it's not just Rio and Bay whose lives are at stake, but rather the whole of Atlantia.

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Divergent - Veronica Roth

Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), Erudite (the intelligent), Abnegation (the selfless), and Candor (the honest). You'll forgive me if the Factions of Tris's world put me just slightly in mind of the different Hogwarts Houses from the world of Harry Potter.

Tris's city is divided up into these five Factions. She's grown up in Abnegation, but it's never been the Faction for her; she knows she can never be selfless enough to be happy there. Like Hogwarts, Tris and her fellow students must undergo something of a test to see which Faction they would be best suited to be in -- but despite what the test results show, the choice still remains in each students' hands. And so Tris does not let her (eerily inconclusive) test results stop her from choosing the people she's always wanted to be with: the Dauntless.

But the world of the Dauntless is not always what Tris expected. Bravery here seems to be defined as recklessness more than true courage, and Tris finds herself testing her loyalties to herself and her friends, as well as the world she's grown up in. It doesn't help that Tris carries a secret: she's not really Dauntless nor Abengation, but rather something else entirely: Divergent. But when she uncovers a secret about the very fabric of her society, Tris finds herself drawn into something she's not sure she'll ever be able to find her way out of.

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-- Post by Ms. B