Books like The Darkest Minds
What should you read after Alexandra Bracken’s novel? It depends on what you loved most about it.
- Alexandra Bracken
- 2012
- YA dystopian
What did you love about it?
Choosing one reorders everything below.
Best books to read after The Darkest Minds
Ranked overall. Pick what you loved above to re-rank them.
Best overall matchRed Queen
Victoria Aveyard
A girl with a power that terrifies the people holding her, dropped into a system built to sort children by what they can do. Same engine, court intrigue instead of a road trip.
- Kids with dangerous powers
- A heroine afraid of herself
- Government camps
- Palace politics, not fugitives
Great matchLegend
Marie Lu
Two teenagers on opposite sides of a militarised state, one hunted and one hunting. Marie Lu writes the chase better than almost anyone in this bracket.
- A road trip with strangers
- Government camps
- Kids with dangerous powers
- No superpowers, just training
Great matchThe Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins
The book that made this whole shelf exist: children sorted, used and put on display by a government that calls it necessary. Still the sharpest of them.
- Government camps
- A heroine afraid of herself
- Kids with dangerous powers
- Arena spectacle, not camps
Great matchDivergent
Veronica Roth
Another teenager whose test result makes her dangerous to the system that tested her. Faction-sorting rather than colour-coding, and it moves at the same clip.
- Kids with dangerous powers
- Government camps
- A heroine afraid of herself
- Almost no found-family road trip
Great matchThe Maze Runner
James Dashner
Kids penned in by adults running an experiment they refuse to explain. Colder than Bracken and much less interested in feelings, but the escape plot delivers.
- Government camps
- A road trip with strangers
- Characters drawn very thinly
Best for the heroine afraid of herselfShatter Me
Tahereh Mafi
A girl whose touch kills, kept in isolation because of it. Juliette's terror of her own body is the closest match anywhere to Ruby's, and the prose is deliberately overheated.
- A heroine afraid of herself
- Kids with dangerous powers
- Slow-burn romance
- Stylised prose divides readers
Great matchSlated
Teenagers whose memories have been wiped by the state and returned to families they don't recognise. The premise sits right next to Ruby's erased past.
- Government camps
- A heroine afraid of herself
- Slower and more British
Worth a look — with a warningThe Giver
Lois Lowry
A community that sorts its twelve-year-olds by aptitude and disposes of the ones that don't fit. The idea underneath the whole genre, in its plainest form.
- Government camps
- Kids with dangerous powers
- Middle-grade, no action
Great matchDelirium
Lauren Oliver
Love classified as a disease and cured at eighteen, with a girl who defects before her appointment. Same running-from-the-state shape, romance turned right up.
- Slow-burn romance
- Government camps
- Found family on the run
- Romance is the entire engine
Worth a look — with a warningThe Selection
Kiera Cass
A caste system, a competition and a palace romance. It shares the sorted-society backdrop and none of the fear — read it for comfort, not for stakes.
- Slow-burn romance
- Government camps
- Very low stakes
Great matchThe 5th Wave
Rick Yancey
After an invasion, a girl crossing a hostile country alone and a camp where children are being trained into something else. The road-trip half of Bracken, with aliens.
- A road trip with strangers
- Government camps
- Kids with dangerous powers
- Alien invasion premise
Worth a look — with a warningThe Power of Six
Pittacus Lore
Gifted kids with developing powers, hunted and travelling together. It delivers the found-family-on-the-run beat, but it is the second book of a long, uneven series.
- Kids with dangerous powers
- Found family on the run
- Second in a long series
Great matchMatched
Ally Condie
A state that chooses your work, your food and your husband, and a girl who sees the wrong face on the screen. Quieter than Bracken, and rather better written.
- Slow-burn romance
- Government camps
- A heroine afraid of herself
- Slow, contemplative pacing
What should you read after The Darkest Minds?
The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken 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 with a power that terrifies the people holding her, dropped into a system built to sort children by what they can do. Same engine, court intrigue instead of a road trip.
If what stayed with you was a road trip with strangers, read Legend by Marie Lu instead: two teenagers on opposite sides of a militarised state, one hunted and one hunting. Marie Lu writes the chase better than almost anyone in this bracket. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is the other strong option — the book that made this whole shelf exist: children sorted, used and put on display by a government that calls it necessary. Still the sharpest of them.
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