Books like Shatter Me
What should you read after Tahereh Mafi’s novel? It depends on what you loved most about it.
- Tahereh Mafi
- 2011
- Dystopian young adult
What did you love about it?
Choosing one reorders everything below.
Best books to read after Shatter Me
Ranked overall. Pick what you loved above to re-rank them.
Best overall matchRed Queen
Victoria Aveyard
A girl discovers a power nobody expected her to have, and two princes and a regime all want to own it. The closest thing to Mafi's setup, with sturdier plot mechanics.
- A touch that kills
- A regime that wants to use her
- A love triangle with a villain
- Much less stylised prose
Best for the fight backThe Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins
The book that set the template: a girl the regime wants as a symbol, who works out that being useful to them is simply another kind of cage.
- A regime that wants to use her
- Learning to fight back
- A love triangle with a villain
- Plainer, harder prose
Great matchDivergent
Veronica Roth
Training sequences, a girl who is dangerous in a way the system cannot categorise, and a mentor-turned-love-interest who takes far too much interest in her results.
- Learning to fight back
- A regime that wants to use her
- A love triangle with a villain
- Faction premise strains logic
Great matchMatched
Ally Condie
A regime that assigns you a husband, and a girl who starts noticing the seams — quieter than Mafi, and just as interested in whether feeling anything is permitted.
- A regime that wants to use her
- A love triangle with a villain
- Gentle, low-conflict pacing
Great matchLegend
Marie Lu
Two teenagers on opposite sides of a military state, one of them raised specifically as its instrument. Lu writes cleaner action than most of this shelf.
- Learning to fight back
- A regime that wants to use her
- A girl locked up as a weapon
- Sparse prose, no lyricism
Worth a look — with a warningThe Giver
Lois Lowry
The ancestor of all of it: a child handed a capacity his society has organised itself to suppress, then left to decide what to do about it.
- A regime that wants to use her
- A girl locked up as a weapon
- Middle-grade, no romance
Best for the forbidden-feeling premiseDelirium
Lauren Oliver
Love classified as a disease and cured at eighteen — and Oliver writes the lush, aching interiority that Mafi's narration runs on.
- Purple, lyrical narration
- A regime that wants to use her
- Crossed-out sentences
- No powers, no confinement
Great matchThe Selection
Kiera Cass
If the palace, the dresses and the choosing between two men were the draw, Cass gives you all of it and dispenses with the dystopia almost entirely.
- A love triangle with a villain
- A regime that wants to use her
- Very light on stakes
Worth a look — with a warningThe Jewel
Amy Ewing
A girl kept as property for what her body can do, sold into a house that treats her as an asset. The most literal version of Juliette's cage on this list.
- A girl locked up as a weapon
- A regime that wants to use her
- Reproductive coercion premise
Great matchThe Elite
Kiera Cass
The middle book, which is where the triangle stops being fun and starts costing somebody something — the exact register of Mafi's second act.
- A love triangle with a villain
- A regime that wants to use her
- The heroine's indecision frustrates
Great matchThe One
Kiera Cass
Cass finally lets the rebellion into the ballroom, and the choice between two men turns out to have political consequences after all.
- A love triangle with a villain
- Learning to fight back
- Third in a series
Worth a look — with a warningThe Heir
Kiera Cass
The next generation, with a prickly princess running the competition herself — worth it if you want more of the world rather than more of the ache.
- A love triangle with a villain
- A regime that wants to use her
- Protagonist is hard to like
Great matchThe Crown
Kiera Cass
The closing book, tying off the second Selection. Read for completeness rather than because it will do to you what Mafi did.
- A love triangle with a villain
- Learning to fight back
- Rushed final act
What should you read after Shatter Me?
Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi works on several levels at once, and which book you should read next depends on which of those levels got you. For most readers the closest match is Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard — a girl discovers a power nobody expected her to have, and two princes and a regime all want to own it. The closest thing to Mafi's setup, with sturdier plot mechanics.
If what stayed with you was a regime that wants to use her, read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins instead: the book that set the template: a girl the regime wants as a symbol, who works out that being useful to them is simply another kind of cage. Divergent by Veronica Roth is the other strong option — training sequences, a girl who is dangerous in a way the system cannot categorise, and a mentor-turned-love-interest who takes far too much interest in her results.
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