Books like 'The Way the World Ends'
Readers who enjoyed The Way the World Ends by Jess Walter also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary sc-fi north-america usa mississippi pollution-climate-change lgbtq dystopia post-apocalyptic coming-of-age
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Playground by Richard Powers
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFour lives are drawn together in a sweeping, panoramic new novel from Richard Powers, showcasing the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Overstory at the height of his skills. Twelve-year-old Evie Beaulieu sinks to the bottom of a swimming pool in Montreal strapped to one of the world’s first aqualungs. Ina Aroita grows up on naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home...Categorized as:
literary-fiction pollution-climate-change dystopia disaster fiction sci-fi outdoors audiobook -
![Fever by Deon Meyer]()
Fever by Deon Meyer
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsNico Storm and his father Willem drive a truck filled with essential supplies through a desolate land. They are among the few in South Africa--and the world, as far as they know--to have survived a devastating virus which has swept through the country... -
![The Stranding by Kate Sawyer]()
The Stranding by Kate Sawyer
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsRuth lives in the heart of the city. Working, drinking, falling in love: the rhythm of her vivid and complicated life there is set against a background hum of darkening news reports from which she deliberately turns away... -
![The Warrior Race by T.C. Edge]()
The Warrior Race by T.C. Edge
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsKira Blackstone’s reputation precedes her. Rebel, warrior, genetically enhanced killer. She’s fought since she was a girl to save the city of Haven. Now, unfortunately, her friends are going to have to fight their war without her. Kidnapped during a fight by a group of mysterious soldiers, garbed in fine silver armour and flowing red robes, Kira finds herself waking in total darkness... -
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![Falling Stars by Kyla Stone]()
Falling Stars by Kyla Stone
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThey survived the Grand Voyager. They believed they were safe. They were wrong. After a violent ambush, the survivors find themselves thrust into a harsh, unrecognizable world. No communications. No shelter. No food. All they have is each other—a ragtag group of elites and misfits. Amelia faces her deadliest test yet. Guilt-ridden Willow must save her brother at any cost...Categorized as:
disaster dystopia literary-fiction post-apocalyptic action-adventure aliens apocalyptic book -
![Breakdown by Bruno Miller]()
Breakdown by Bruno Miller
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA Post-Apocalyptic Survival seriesDo you have what it takes to survive? Ben Davis was prepared for disaster. He just didn’t know it would come so soon. He and his teenage son, Joel, are miles deep in the backcountry of the San Juan Mountains when high-altitude nuclear electromagnetic detonations light up the pre-dawn sky...Categorized as:
disaster dystopia post-apocalyptic action-adventure adult apocalyptic book contemporary -
![Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones by Torrey Peters]()
Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones by Torrey Peters
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn the future, everyone will be trans. So says Lexi. She's a charismatic trans woman furious with the way she sees her trans friends treated by society and resentful of the girl who spurned her love...Categorized as:
dystopia lgbtq literary-fiction post-apocalyptic 21st-century adult book contemporary -
![The Free People's Village by Sim Kern]()
The Free People's Village by Sim Kern
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsIn an alternate 2020 timeline, Al Gore won the 2000 election and declared a War on Climate Change rather than a War on Terror. For twenty years, Democrats have controlled all three branches of government, enacting carbon-cutting schemes that never made it to a vote in our world. Green infrastructure projects have transformed U.S...Categorized as:
lgbtq dystopia pollution-climate-change literary-fiction disaster fiction sci-fi politics -
![Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea by Sarah Pinsker]()
Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea by Sarah Pinsker
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsThe baker's dozen stories gathered here (including a new, previously unpublished story) turn readers into travelers to the past, the future, and explorers of the weirder points of the present...Categorized as:
dystopia lgbtq literary-fiction adult anthologies apocalyptic audiobook contemporary -
![Depart, Depart! by Sim Kern]()
Depart, Depart! by Sim Kern
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhen an unprecedented hurricane devastates the city of Houston, Noah Mishner finds shelter in the Dallas Mavericks’ basketball arena. Though he finds community among other queer refugees, Noah fears his trans and Jewish identities put him at risk with certain "capital-T" Texans. His fears take form when he starts seeing visions of his great- grandfather Abe, who fled Nazi Germany as a boy...Categorized as:
lgbtq pollution-climate-change dystopia post-apocalyptic fiction horror trans-mc sci-fi -
![Under the Blue by Oana Aristide]()
Under the Blue by Oana Aristide
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsA road trip beneath clear blue skies and a blazing sun: a reclusive artist is forced to abandon his home and follow two young sisters across a post-pandemic Europe in search of a safe place. Is this the end of the world?Meanwhile two computer scientists have been educating their baby in a remote location. Their baby is called Talos, and he is an advanced AI program... -
![Dreamland by Rosa Rankin-Gee]()
Dreamland by Rosa Rankin-Gee
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratings'You said that you would come back. You looked me in the eye and said that. Well, if you had, this is what you would have seen: soft wood, black cracks, fridges in the road. The broken spines of old rides at Dreamland.'In the coastal resort of Margate, hotels lie empty and sun-faded 'For Sale' signs line the streets. The sea is higher - it's higher everywhere - and those who can are moving inland...Categorized as:
dystopia lgbtq literary-fiction pollution-climate-change post-apocalyptic disaster fiction sci-fi -
![When the Power Is Gone by P.A. Glaspy]()
When the Power Is Gone by P.A. Glaspy
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsRuss and Anne Mathews live in a rural suburb in Tennessee. Regular people, with regular jobs, living a normal life - except for one thing. They are what many people call "preppers." They have stocked up on supplies to survive any kind of event they can think of that may occur to disrupt life as they know it. When that event comes, they start preparing for the new way of life they will face...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction post-apocalyptic action-adventure adult apocalyptic book contemporary -
![Liberation Day: Stories by George Saunders]()
Liberation Day: Stories by George Saunders
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsMacArthur genius and Booker Prize winner George Saunders returns with a collection of short stories that make sense of our increasingly troubled world, his first since the New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist Tenth of DecemberThe "best short story writer in English" (Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice, and cuts to the... -
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![The High House by Jessie Greengrass]()
The High House by Jessie Greengrass
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn this powerful, highly anticipated novel from an award-winning author, four people attempt to make a home in the midst of environmental disaster.Perched on a sloping hill, set away from a small town by the sea, the High House has a tide pool and a mill, a vegetable garden, and, most importantly, a barn full of supplies... -
![Green Rising by Lauren James]()
Green Rising by Lauren James
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSet in a near-future world on the brink of ecological catastrophe, Lauren James’ novel is a gripping, witty and romantic call to arms.Gabrielle is a climate-change activist who shoots to fame when she becomes the first teenager to display a supernatural ability to grow plants from her skin. Hester is the millionaire daughter of an oil tycoon and the face of the family business...Categorized as:
dystopia lgbtq pollution-climate-change body-horror book contemporary disability enemies-to-lovers -
![EVER by Blake Butler]()
EVER by Blake Butler
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFiction. Within the psychic architecture that is EVER, Blake Butler explores the way bodies swell and contract, going from skin to house and back again. And the way houses too shrink to fit us first like clothing and then like skin and then tighter still. The result is a strange, visionary ontological dismemberment that takes you well beyond what you'd ever expect--Brian Evenson... -
![Seeking Justice by T.L. Payne]()
Seeking Justice by T.L. Payne
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsRaine Caldwell and the other survivors from St. Louis thought getting out of the city would be the answer to their problems. They quickly learn that violence and winter’s fury aren’t exclusive to the city.The group is tested far beyond anything they could imagine as they begin to settle in and survive life without modern conveniences...Categorized as:
dystopia north-america post-apocalyptic usa action-adventure apocalyptic book contemporary -
![Every Version of You by Grace Chan]()
Every Version of You by Grace Chan
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn late twenty-first century Australia, Tao-Yi and her partner Navin spend most of their time inside a hyper-immersive, hyper-consumerist virtual reality called Gaia. They log on, go to work, socialise, and even eat in this digital utopia. Meanwhile their aging bodies lie suspended in pods inside cramped apartments...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction lgbtq pollution-climate-change disaster sci-fi fiction mental-illness -
![The Maerlande Chronicles by Élisabeth Vonarburg]()
The Maerlande Chronicles by Élisabeth Vonarburg
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA future society, where women far outnumber men, has abandoned the models of patriarchy and matriarchy and established new gender roles. But Lisbei, a young thinker whose gift is exploring the past, confronts the new establishment in order to force changes of her own. The Maerlande Chronicles is a sequel to the critically-acclaimed novel The Silent City... -
![A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar]()
A Guardian and a Thief by Megha Majumdar
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsOPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD“Wondering if there’s a novel out there that gives Cormac McCarthy’s The Road a run for its money? Here you go. [A Guardian and a Thief is] an indelible piece of writing, in equal parts dazzling and devastating...Categorized as:
literary-fiction dystopia fiction sci-fi contemporary historical-fiction mystery book -
![A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker]()
A Song for a New Day by Sarah Pinsker
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsIn this captivating science fiction novel from an award-winning author, public gatherings are illegal making concerts impossible, except for those willing to break the law for the love of music, and for one chance at human connection.In the Before, when the government didn't prohibit large public gatherings, Luce Cannon was on top of the world...Categorized as:
coming-of-age dystopia lgbtq literary-fiction post-apocalyptic 21st-century adult apocalyptic -
![Wolfe Island by Lucy Treloar]()
Wolfe Island by Lucy Treloar
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFor years Kitty Hawke has lived alone on Wolfe Island, witness to the island’s erosion and clinging to the ghosts of her past. Her work as a sculptor and her wolfdog Girl are enough. News of mainland turmoil is as distant as myth until refugees from that world arrive: her granddaughter Cat, and Luis and Alejandra, a brother and sister escaping persecution...Categorized as:
disaster dystopia literary-fiction pollution-climate-change adult audiobook book contemporary -
![Milo and Marcos at the End of the World by Kevin Christopher Snipes]()
Milo and Marcos at the End of the World by Kevin Christopher Snipes
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWhen Marcos moves to town, Milo is forced to acknowledge the feelings he's kept hidden, especially from his religious parents. But as natural disasters begin to befall them the closer they become, Milo and Marcos soon begin to wonder if the universe itself is plotting against them in this young adult debut by playwright and creator of The Two Princes podcast, Kevin Christopher Snipes... -
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![Apocalypse Law by John Grit]()
Apocalypse Law by John Grit
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA plague wipes out ninety-five percent of the world's population, taking Nate Williams' wife and daughter and leaving him with his thirteen-year-old son to survive on their farm. In the bedlam of lawlessness and starvation, hungry, desperate men arrive from the nearest town to take their meager supplies. A benevolent stranger keeps coming in the night to steal food...Categorized as:
disaster dystopia post-apocalyptic action-adventure adult apocalyptic book contemporary -
![Palestine +100: Stories from a Century after the Nakba by Basma Ghalayini, Mazen Maarouf]()
Palestine +100: Stories from a Century after the Nakba by Basma Ghalayini, Mazen Maarouf
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsPalestine + 100 poses a question to twelve Palestinian writers: what might your country look like in the year 2048 – a century after the tragedies and trauma of what has come to be called the Nakba? How might this event – which, in 1948, saw the expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs from their homes – reach across a century of occupation, oppression, and political isolation, to shape the...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction post-apocalyptic adult anthologies contemporary fiction poc-author -
![My Chemical Mountain by Corina Vacco]()
My Chemical Mountain by Corina Vacco
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsRocked by his father's recent death and his mother's sudden compulsion to overeat, Jason lashes out by breaking into the abandoned mills and factories that plague his run-down town. Always by his side are his two best friends, Charlie, a fearless thrill junkie, and Cornpup, a geek inventor whose back is covered with cysts... -
![Winter's Truth by Leta Blake]()
Winter's Truth by Leta Blake
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWinter-fox brings Viro some surprising truths for the holiday Viro Sabel is eleven years old and still entirely innocent about life. This year winter-fox brings him some surprising truths that alter the way he sees the world and his place in it. Learn more about the character of Viro, Slow Heat’s Vale and Jason’s son, in this winter holiday-themed novella... -
![Bugging Out by Noah Mann]()
Bugging Out by Noah Mann
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 11 ratingsGet out. Hunker down. Stay alive. It came without warning. A microscopic enemy that methodically turned the green earth grey. Decimating the food chain until only the prepared were left.But preparation alone is not enough to shelter Eric Fletcher from the chaos to befall the world as governments fail their citizens...Categorized as:
disaster dystopia post-apocalyptic action-adventure adult apocalyptic book contemporary -
![The Measure by Nikki Erlick]()
The Measure by Nikki Erlick
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 5 ratingsIt seems like any other day: You wake up, pour a cup of coffee, and head out. But today when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. This box holds your fate inside: the answer to the exact number of years you will live.From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box... -
![In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster]()
In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsIn a distant and unsettling future, Anna Blume is on a mission in an unnamed city of chaos and disaster. Its destitute inhabitants scavenge garbage for food and shelter, no industry exists, and an elusive government provides nothing but corruption. Anna wades through the filth to find her long-lost brother, a one-time journalist who may or may not be alive...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction post-apocalyptic 20th-century adult anthologies apocalyptic contemporary -
![The Last Tribe by Brad Manuel]()
The Last Tribe by Brad Manuel
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsImagine being alone in the world, one of only a handful to survive a global pandemic. Not only do you struggle to find food, water, and shelter, you deal with the sadness and loss of everyone you know, and everything you have. Fourteen year old Greg Dixon is living that nightmare. Attending boarding school outside of Boston, he is separated from his family when a pandemic strikes...Categorized as:
disaster dystopia post-apocalyptic action-adventure adult apocalyptic audiobook book -
![Palm Meridian by Grace Flahive]()
Palm Meridian by Grace Flahive
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA rollicking, big-hearted story of long-lost love, friendship, and a life well-lived, set at a Florida retirement resort for queer women, on the last day of resident Hannah Cardin’s life—for readers of Less and The Wedding People... -
![We Are Not Blood: A Found Family Post Apocalyptic by Nicole Scarano]()
We Are Not Blood: A Found Family Post Apocalyptic by Nicole Scarano
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThe Last of Us meets A Quiet Place & Annihilation in this Found Family Post Apocalyptic without zombies. A 36-year-old sheriff on his way to a meeting. A 21-year-old student returning to her senior year of college. A 6-month-old baby in the backseat of her mother’s car.Three strangers who should’ve never met...Categorized as:
dystopia post-apocalyptic disaster found-family sci-fi contemporary supernatural romantic-love -
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![The Displacements by Bruce Holsinger]()
The Displacements by Bruce Holsinger
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsTo all appearances, the Larsen-Hall family has everything: healthy children, a stable marriage, a lucrative career for Brantley, and the means for Daphne to pursue her art full-time. Their deluxe new Miami life has just clicked into place when Luna—the world’s first category 6 hurricane—upends everything they have taken for granted... -
![Beauty Salon by Mario Bellatin]()
Beauty Salon by Mario Bellatin
Rated: 3.86 of 5 stars · 14 ratings"Like much of Mr. Bellatin’s work, Beauty Salon is pithy, allegorical and profoundly disturbing, with a plot that evokes The Plague by Camus or Blindness by José Saramago."--New York Times"Including a few details that may linger uncomfortably with the reader for a long time, this is contemporary naturalism as disturbing as it gets."--BooklistA strange plague appears in a large city... -
![Dissipatio H.G.: The Vanishing by Guido Morselli]()
Dissipatio H.G.: The Vanishing by Guido Morselli
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFrom his solitary buen retiro in the mountains, the last man on earth drives to the capital Chrysopolis to see if anyone else has survived the Vanishing. But there’s no one else, living or dead, in that city of “holy plutocracy,” with its fifty-six banks and as many churches...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction post-apocalyptic adult anthologies apocalyptic classics contemporary -
![Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman]()
Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA dark and witty story of environmental collapse and runaway capitalism from the Booker-listed author of The Teleportation Accident.The near future. Tens of thousands of species are going extinct every year. And a whole industry has sprung up around their extinctions, to help us preserve the remnants, or perhaps just assuage our guilt...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction pollution-climate-change disaster fiction sci-fi outdoors audiobook -
![Extinction Journals by Jeremy Robert Johnson]()
Extinction Journals by Jeremy Robert Johnson
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsYou can survive a nuclear blast. All you need is some luck, and maybe a customized business suit coated in cockroaches. It could work. At least that's what Dean believed before the bombs actually dropped and his suit led him to murder a Very Important Man at the foot of a blackened obelisk. Now D.C. is looking awfully empty. Life on Earth is pretty much coming to an end...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction post-apocalyptic action-adventure adult apocalyptic book contemporary -
![Noah's Ark: Survivors by Harry Dayle]()
Noah's Ark: Survivors by Harry Dayle
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsMay 1st 2014 the Earth is scorched by a stray asteroid, wiping out almost all life. Almost, but not quite. Three thousand souls aboard a cruise ship visiting the north pole are spared by a freak of nature.The ship’s First Officer, Jake Noah, was looking forward to getting back to dry land once and for all...Categorized as:
disaster dystopia literary-fiction post-apocalyptic action-adventure adult apocalyptic book -
![The Glad Shout by Alice Robinson]()
The Glad Shout by Alice Robinson
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAfter a catastrophic storm destroys Melbourne, Isobel flees to higher ground with her husband and young daughter. Food and supplies run low, panic sets in and still no help arrives. To protect her daughter, Isobel must take drastic action. The Glad Shout is an extraordinary novel of rare depth and texture... -
![Meet Us by the Roaring Sea by Akil Kumarasamy]()
Meet Us by the Roaring Sea by Akil Kumarasamy
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn the near future, a young woman finds her mother's body starfished on the kitchen floor in Queens and sets on a journey through language, archives, artificial intelligence, and TV for a way back into herself...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction lgbtq fiction sci-fi contemporary historical-fiction magical-realism -
![Milk Teeth by Helene Bukowski]()
Milk Teeth by Helene Bukowski
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsSkalde writes her thoughts on pieces of paper, making new discoveries and revelations, and finding scraps with which to understand her limited world. Her mother Edith tells her little, preferring the solitude of her room. Their house is full of silence, and secrets...Categorized as:
dystopia pollution-climate-change post-apocalyptic disaster fiction sci-fi contemporary near-future -
![The Bear by Andrew Krivak]()
The Bear by Andrew Krivak
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsFrom National Book Award in Fiction finalist Andrew Krivak comes a gorgeous fable of Earth’s last two human inhabitants and a girl's journey home.In an Eden-like future, a girl and her father live close to the land in the shadow of a lone mountain. They own a few remnants of civilization: some books, a pane of glass, a set of flint and steel, a comb... -
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![What We Can Know by Ian McEwan]()
What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratings2014: A great poem is read aloud and never heard again. For generations, people speculate about its message, but no copy has yet been found.2119: The lowlands of the UK have been submerged by rising seas. Those who survive are haunted by the richness of the world that has been lost... -
![White by Tim Lebbon]()
White by Tim Lebbon
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWinner of the British Fantasy Award, selected for several 'Best of' anthologies, optioned for the big screen!First comes the Ruin. Society crumbles. Then comes the snow. A handful of survivors flee to a Cornish mansion, seeking peace and safety. Instead they find themselves under siege from the things now inhabiting the snowscape outside ..Categorized as:
dystopia pollution-climate-change post-apocalyptic adult apocalyptic book contemporary dark-fantasy -
![Dance the Eagle to Sleep by Marge Piercy]()
Dance the Eagle to Sleep by Marge Piercy
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsOriginally published in 1970, Marge Piercy’s second novel follows the lives of four teenagers in a near-future society as they rebel against a military draft and “the system.” The occupation of Franklin High School begins, and with it, the open rebellion of America’s youth against their channeled, unrewarding lives and the self-serving, plastic society that directs them...Categorized as:
coming-of-age dystopia literary-fiction adult book contemporary female-author feminism -
![Rivers by Michael Farris Smith]()
Rivers by Michael Farris Smith
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFor fans of Cormac McCarthy and Annie Proulx, “a wonderfully cinematic story” (The Washington Post) set in the post-Katrina South after violent storms have decimated the region.It had been raining for weeks. Maybe months... -
![Interzone by William S. Burroughs]()
Interzone by William S. Burroughs
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn 1954 William Burroughs settled in Tangiers, finding a sanctuary of sorts in its shadowy streets, blind alleys, and lowlife decadence. It was this city that served as a catalyst for Burroughs as a writer, the backdrop for one of the most radical transformations of style in literary history...Categorized as:
dystopia lgbtq literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies classics contemporary -
![A People's Future of the United States: Speculative Fiction from 25 Extraordinary Writers by Victor LaValle, John Joseph Adams]()
A People's Future of the United States: Speculative Fiction from 25 Extraordinary Writers by Victor LaValle, John Joseph Adams
Rated: 3.79 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsWhat if America's founding ideals finally became reality? A future of peace, justice, and love comes to life in original speculative stories that challenge oppression and embrace inclusiveness—from N. K. Jemisin, Charles Yu, Jamie Ford, and more. For many Americans, imagining a bright future has always been an act of resistance...
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