Books like 'The Road'
Readers who enjoyed The Road by Cormac McCarthy also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary sc-fi horror action / adventure mystery north-america usa dystopia apocalyptic post-apocalyptic
-
The Hunted by Charlie Higson
Rated: 4.44 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe Hunted is Charlie Higson's sixth terrifying installment in the thrilling The Enemy series. The sickness struck everyone over fourteen. First it twisted their minds. Next it ravaged their bodies. Now they roam the streets - Crazed and hungry The others had promised that the countryside would be safer than the city. They were wrong... -
Dust by Hugh Howey
Rated: 4.27 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsWool introduced the world of the silo. Shift told the story of its creation. Dust will describe its downfall. The residents of Silo 18 have a new mayor and the chance of a new beginning. But just as they regain their footing, their gravest threat emerges: Silo 1, and the men who brought Earth into ruin. But power, politics, and the survival of the human race are complex...Categorized as:
apocalyptic dark dystopia post-apocalyptic survival suspense action-adventure alternate-history -
The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsTwo boys, alone in space.After the first settler on Titan trips her distress signal, neither remaining country on Earth can afford to scramble a rescue of its own, and so two sworn enemies are installed in the same spaceship.Ambrose wakes up on the Coordinated Endeavor, with no memory of a launch... -
Light by Michael Grant
Rated: 4.34 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsIt's been over a year since all the adults disappeared. Gone.In the time since every person over the age of fourteen disappeared from the town of Perdido Beach, California, countless battles have been fought: battles against hunger and lies and plague, and epic battles of good against evil... -
-
Babylon's Ashes by James S.A. Corey
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 57 ratingsThe sixth book in the New York Times bestselling Expanse series. NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES A revolution brewing for generations has begun in fire. It will end in blood.The Free Navy - a violent group of Belters in black-market military ships - has crippled the Earth and begun a campaign of piracy and violence among the outer planets... -
First Shift: Legacy by Hugh Howey
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsIn 2007, the Center for Automation in Nanobiotech (CAN) outlined the hardware and software platform that would one day allow robots smaller than human cells to make medical diagnoses, conduct repairs, and even self-propagate. In the same year, the CBS network re-aired a program about the effects of propranolol on sufferers of extreme trauma... -
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...Categorized as:
apocalyptic drama dystopia family literary-fiction post-apocalyptic survival suspense -
Fire & Ash by Jonathan Maberry
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 29 ratingsIn the gripping conclusion to the action-packed standard bearer (Booklist) of zombie series, the threat of death is given new life.Benny Imura and his friends have found the jet and Sanctuary, but neither is what they expected. Instead of a refuge, Sanctuary is a hospice, and the soldiers who flew the plane seem to be little more than bureaucrats who have given up hope for humanity's future...Categorized as:
apocalyptic dark dystopia family post-apocalyptic survival suspense action-adventure -
Contagious Chaos by Emily Goodwin
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsContagious Chaos, the highly anticipated third book in the Contagium Series, winner of the Contagious Reads Horror Con’s 2014 best horror series, follows Orissa and her friends as they struggle through a zombie filled world...Categorized as:
apocalyptic dystopia post-apocalyptic survival suspense action-adventure adult alpha-mc -
The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 62 ratingsWe were in the square, in the square where I'd run, holding her, carrying her, telling her to stay alive, stay alive till we got safe, till we got to Haven so I could save her - But there weren't no safety, no safety at all, there was just him and his men...Fleeing before a relentless army, Todd has carried a desperately wounded Viola right into the hands of their worst enemy, Mayor Prentiss...Categorized as:
apocalyptic dark dystopia high-school post-apocalyptic survival suspense action-adventure -
Dust & Decay by Jonathan Maberry
Rated: 4.28 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsSix months have passed since the terrifying battle with Charlie Pink-eye and the Motor City Hammer in the zombie-infested mountains of the Rot & Ruin. It’s also six months since Benny Imura and Nix Riley saw something in the air that changed their lives... -
Blindness by José Saramago
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 72 ratingsFrom Nobel Prize–winning author José Saramago, a magnificent, mesmerizing parable of lossA city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" that spares no one. Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and assaulting women... -
Unwind by Neal Shusterman
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 47 ratingsConnor, Risa, and Lev are running for their lives.The Second Civil War was fought over reproductive rights. The chilling resolution: Life is inviolable from the moment of conception until age thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, parents can have their child "unwound," whereby all of the child's organs are transplanted into different donors, so life doesn't technically end... -
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, Andy Weir
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 87 ratingsJason Dessen is walking home through the chilly Chicago streets one night, looking forward to a quiet evening in front of the fireplace with his wife, Daniela, and their son, Charlie—when his reality shatters.- - -'Are you happy in your life?'Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious... -
-
UnWholly by Neal Shusterman
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 50 ratingsAlternate cover for this ISBN can be found hereIt’s finally here. The long-awaited sequel to the bestselling Unwind, which Publishers Weekly called a “gripping, brilliantly imagined futuristic thriller.”Thanks to Connor, Lev, and Risa—and their high-profile revolt at Happy Jack Harvest Camp—people can no longer turn a blind eye to unwinding... -
Shift by Hugh Howey
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 38 ratingsIn 2007, the Center for Automation in Nanobiotech outlined the hardware and software platforms that would one day allow robots smaller than human cells to make medical diagnoses, conduct repairs, and even self-propagate. In the same year, a TV program aired the effects of propranolol on sufferers of extreme trauma...Categorized as:
apocalyptic dark dystopia post-apocalyptic survival suspense 21st-century action-adventure -
Wool by Hugh Howey
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 74 ratingsIn a ruined and toxic future, a community exists in a giant silo underground, hundreds of stories deep. There, men and women live in a society full of regulations they believe are meant to protect them. Sheriff Holston, who has unwaveringly upheld the silo’s rules for years, unexpectedly breaks the greatest taboo of all: He asks to go outside... -
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... -
Surviving the Collapse by James Hunt
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsCaptain Kate Holloway moved her family to New York to start over, and break the barriers that her work had created. But when an EMP brings New York to its knees, Kate must fight to survive amid the terror descending upon the city and rescue her family...Categorized as:
apocalyptic dystopia literary-fiction post-apocalyptic suspense action-adventure adult book -
The Grace Year by Kim Liggett
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsNo one speaks of the grace year. It’s forbidden.In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. They believe their very skin emits a powerful aphrodisiac, the potent essence of youth, of a girl on the edge of womanhood... -
UnSouled by Neal Shusterman
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsTeens fight for their humanity in this thrilling third book in the New York Times bestselling Unwind Dystology series by Neal Shusterman.Connor and Lev are on the run after the destruction of the Graveyard, the last safe haven for AWOL unwinds...Categorized as:
dark dystopia high-school post-apocalyptic survival suspense action-adventure audiobook -
State of Vengeance by Summer Lane
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsVengeance is coming. Monterey Bay, California, has barely survived a brutal attack from the evil invasion forces of Omega, and Cassidy Hart is exhausted. She has lost a friend and gained a new enemy. The militias seem to be weakening, and Omega seems to be getting stronger... -
Flesh & Bone by Jonathan Maberry
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsReeling from the tragic events of Dust & Decay, Benny Imura and his friends plunge deep into the zombie-infested wastelands of the great Rot & Ruin. Benny, Nix, Lilah and Chong journey through a fierce wilderness that was once America, searching for the jet they saw in the skies months ago. If that jet exists then humanity itself must have survived…somewhere... -
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 74 ratingsFrom "Rocket Summer" to "The Million-Year Picnic," Ray Bradbury's stories of the colonization of Mars form an eerie mesh of past and future. Written in the 1940s, the chronicles drip with nostalgic atmosphere--shady porches with tinkling pitchers of lemonade, grandfather clocks, chintz-covered sofas...Categorized as:
apocalyptic classics dystopia high-school literary-fiction post-apocalyptic university 20th-century -
-
Ubik by Philip K. Dick
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsGlen Runciter runs a lucrative business—deploying his teams of anti-psychics to corporate clients who want privacy and security from psychic spies. But when he and his top team are ambushed by a rival, he is gravely injured and placed in “half-life,” a dreamlike state of suspended animation... -
Fear by Michael Grant
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 47 ratingsIt's been one year since all the adults disappeared. Gone.Despite the hunger and the lies, even despite the plague, the kids of Perdido Beach are determined to survive. Creeping into the tenuous new world they've built, though, is perhaps the worst incarnation yet of the enemy known as the Darkness: fear... -
Plague by Michael Grant
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 50 ratingsIt's been eight months since all the adults disappeared. GONE.They've survived hunger. They've survived lies. But the stakes keep rising, and the dystopian horror keeps building. Yet despite the simmering unrest left behind by so many battles, power struggles, and angry divides, there is a momentary calm in Perdido Beach...Categorized as:
apocalyptic dark dystopia high-school north-america post-apocalyptic survival suspense -
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 78 ratingsSet in the days of civilization's collapse, Station Eleven tells the story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity.One snowy night a famous Hollywood actor slumps over and dies onstage during a production of King Lear...Categorized as:
apocalyptic dark drama dystopia literary-fiction north-america post-apocalyptic survival -
The Time Machine/The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsThe Time Machine and The Invisible Man, by H. G. Wells, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras... -
The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 61 ratingsHere are stories of other worlds: of the rain-gutted forests of Venus and the deep canals of Mars; of the empty blackness of space and of planets that have no name. Here are stories, too, of Earth - new and unfamiliar in the glow of a wondrous future. And here- above all - is the story of The Illustrated man - tattooed by a witch with the most fantastic images ever seen on Earth.. -
The Pulse by Skylar Finn
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn EMP means the end of the world as they know it for a family who fights to survive. When disaster strikes in the form of an EMP, Charlie's family flees to their homestead. They fortify their ranch and prepare to ride out the worst of the chaos. Unfortunately, the gang of scavengers who followed them from the city have other plans...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction post-apocalyptic suspense action-adventure adult book contemporary -
Renegades: Badlands Next Generation by Natalie Bennett
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsOf the devil’s flesh and bone, the prince is ready to claim his throne.I want power.Cam wants penance.I've got a black cult religion backing my decisions.He's got demons hungry for carnage.Everything was going smoothly.Until her.She's the forbidden fruit we're supposed to beware of, but something carnal is growing between us... -
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 48 ratingsOryx and Crake is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future. Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved... -
Heathens by Natalie Bennett
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsCobra Wildcard. Sinner. Frequently misunderstood. I can be your best friend or your worst fucking nightmare. The Savages are my family and the Badlands is our paradise. When that’s threatened, no one is safe. Carnage and chaos unfold around me. Loyalties are tested. Truths start to unravel... -
-
Recursion by Blake Crouch, سعید سیمرغ
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 77 ratingsMemory makes reality.That's what NYC cop Barry Sutton is learning, as he investigates the devastating phenomenon the media has dubbed False Memory Syndrome—a mysterious affliction that drives its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived.That's what neuroscientist Helena Smith believes...Categorized as:
apocalyptic dark drama dystopia post-apocalyptic suspense 21st-century action-adventure -
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 70 ratingsWinner of the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award for best vampire novel of the century: the genre-defining classic of horror sci-fi that inspired three films. The population of the entire world has been obliterated by a pandemic of vampire bacteria. Yet somehow, Robert Neville survived... -
The Swarm by Frank Schätzing
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsFor more than two years, one book has taken over Germany's hardcover and paperback bestseller lists, reaching number one in Der Spiegel and setting off a frenzy in bookstores: The Swarm.Whales begin sinking ships. Toxic, eyeless crabs poison Long Island's water supply. The North Sea shelf collapses, killing thousands in Europe...Categorized as:
apocalyptic classics drama dystopia post-apocalyptic suspense 21st-century action-adventure -
The Darkness We Crave by Katie May
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsMost people don't think about where they're going to be when the world ends. On the beach drinking margaritas? In the arms of a lover? How about in a shit-ass resort run by your shit-ass parents? I have always lived my life as the perfect daughter. At seventeen, I had no other option than to follow my parents' strict regiment... -
Wayward by Blake Crouch
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 37 ratingsWelcome to Wayward Pines, population 461. Nestled amidst picture-perfect mountains, the idyllic town is a modern-day Eden...except for the electrified fence and razor wire, snipers scoping everything 24/7, and the relentless surveillance tracking each word and gesture.None of the residents know how they got here. They are told where to work, how to live, and who to marry... -
The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau, Amélie Hesnard
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsKeep your friends close and your enemies closer. Isn't that what they say? But how close is too close when they may be one and the same?The Seven Stages War left much of the planet a charred wasteland. The future belongs to the next generation's chosen few who must rebuild it... -
Point of Impact by Kyla Stone
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsSurviving the blast is only the beginning… Dakota Sloane, a tough-as-nails former foster kid, has spent her life running from the past. Her only family is her little sister, still trapped in the system. When the news shows the bombs striking several major cities, Dakota’s first thought is to grab her sister and get the hell out of Miami. Logan Garcia is a man haunted by secrets...Categorized as:
apocalyptic dystopia post-apocalyptic survival action-adventure audiobook book contemporary -
The Wall by Marlen Haushofer
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFirst published to acclaim in Germany, The Wall chronicles the life of the last surviving human on earth, an ordinary middle-aged woman who awakens one morning to find that everyone else has vanished. Assuming her isolation to be the result of a military experiment gone awry, she begins the terrifying work of survival and self-renewal...Categorized as:
apocalyptic classics drama dystopia literary-fiction post-apocalyptic survival 20th-century -
Dry by Neal Shusterman, Jarrod Shusterman
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 28 ratingsWhen the California drought escalates to catastrophic proportions, one teen is forced to make life and death decisions for her family in this harrowing story of survival,The drought—or the Tap-Out, as everyone calls it—has been going on for a while now. Everyone’s lives have become an endless list of don’ts: don’t water the lawn, don’t fill up your pool, don’t take long showers... -
The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares, Jorge Luis Borges
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsJorge Luis Borges declared The Invention of Morel a masterpiece of plotting, comparable to The Turn of The Screw and Journey to the Center of the Earth. Set on a mysterious island, Bioy’s novella is a story of suspense and exploration, as well as a wonderfully unlikely romance, in which every detail is at once crystal clear and deeply mysterious...Categorized as:
classics dark drama literary-fiction suspense university 20th-century action-adventure -
-
The Final Stand by James Hunt
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsPrepare and survive. An EMP cripples the nation on the day Detective Mike Thorton was supposed to bury his father. Fighting a panic-stricken city, an unknown enemy, and his own grief, Mike must rescue his family before the city devours them all...Categorized as:
dystopia apocalyptic survival post-apocalyptic literary-fiction suspense terrorism serial-killers -
The Long Walk by Richard Bachman, Stephen King
Rated: 4.03 of 5 stars · 67 ratingsOn the first day of May, 100 teenage boys meet for an event known throughout the country as The Long Walk. If you break the rules, you get three warnings. If you exceed your limit, what happens is absolutely terrifying. Reissue... -
The Maze Runner by James Dashner
Rated: 4.01 of 5 stars · 91 ratingsThere are alternate cover editions for this ASIN here and here.If you ain’t scared, you ain’t human. When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his name. He’s surrounded by strangers—boys whose memories are also gone. Nice to meet ya, shank. Welcome to the Glade. Outside the towering stone walls that surround the Glade is a limitless, ever-changing maze...Categorized as:
apocalyptic drama dystopia high-school post-apocalyptic survival suspense action-adventure -
Fear the Fallout by Kyla Stone
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIf the radiation doesn't kill you, the survivors will. Dakota and Logan continue their treacherous journey to escape the radioactive ruins of downtown Miami, but danger threatens at every turn... Preorder now...Categorized as:
apocalyptic dystopia post-apocalyptic survival action-adventure audiobook book contemporary -
The Fall by Thomas A. Watson
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsWhat would you do in an apocalyptic event? How would your family and friends survive? Could you survive? Join two families on a journey through hell on earth as they try to save themselves and maybe mankind.A super virus has been unleashed on mankind. Our way of life and the modern day speed of travel spread the virus from the jungles of Africa around the world in days... -
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 68 ratingsIn 1951 John Wyndham published his novel The Day of the Triffids to moderate acclaim. Fifty-two years later, this horrifying story is a science fiction classic, touted by The Times (London) as having “all the reality of a vividly realized nightmare.”Bill Masen, bandages over his wounded eyes, misses the most spectacular meteorite shower England has ever seen...Categorized as:
apocalyptic classics dystopia literary-fiction post-apocalyptic survival suspense university
Or - use our amazing romance book finder to get recommendations based on your favorite content tropes and themes. Mix and match at will.