Books like 'Using Life'
Readers who enjoyed Using Life by أحمد ناجي, Ahmed Naji & Ayman Al Zorkany also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
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They Call Her Dirty Sally by Amy Matayo
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsFor years, the town of Silver Bell, Arkansas has quietly mourned the hospital fire that claimed the lives of nine of its residents—the town doctor, a young expectant mother, and seven infants...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction fiction mystery contemporary womens-fiction small-town drama -
A Page in Your Diary by Keith A. Pearson
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsTen insane days. One miraculous opportunity to re-write the past."If you lived through the 1980s and love time travel novels, you'll struggle to find a more addictive read than Pearson's latest gem." - Joanna JamesIn May 1987 Jackie Benton received a heartbreaking phone call from her boyfriend, Sean Hardy, bringing an end to their five-year relationship...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction adult book contemporary fiction paranormal time-travel -
Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle by Harold Bloom, Terry Southern
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsA critical overview of the work features the writings of Terry Southern, William S. Doxey, Jerome Klinkowitz, Richard Giannone, John L. Simons, James Lundquist, and other scholars.- After the bomb, Dad came up with ice / Terry Southern- Vonnegut's Cat's cradle / William S...Categorized as:
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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 historical-fiction dystopia politics fiction sci-fi outdoors audiobook -
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Hard to Be a God by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsThe novel follows Anton, an undercover operative from the future planet Earth, in his mission on an alien planet, that is populated by human beings, whose society has not advanced beyond the Middle Ages...Categorized as:
dystopia historical-fiction literary-fiction politics 20th-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
天橋上的魔術師 by Wu Ming-Yi, 吳明益
Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars · 7 ratings...Categorized as:
literary-fiction historical-fiction fiction young-adult magic family contemporary children -
I Am Not a Number by Lisa Heathfield
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe powerful and heart-wrenching new novel from Lisa Heathfield, award-winning author of Seed and Paper Butterflies. Perfect for fans of Sarah Crossan, Louise O'Neill and Lisa Williamson.The Traditionals have been voted to lead the country, winning people over with talks of healing a broken society, of stronger families and safer streets. They promised a happier future for everyone... -
Choice by Jodi Picoult, Thérèse Plummer
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsListening Length: 38 minutesIn this thought-provoking short, #1 New York Times best-selling and award-winning author Jodi Picoult explores a dystopian crisis through the pinhole lens of an ex-couple experiencing an unwanted pregnancy.Margot and James are broken up—for good this time. James made sure of it when he dropped the bomb on Margot: that he doesn’t want kids, ever... -
Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsIt is the year 2081. Because of Amendments 211, 212, and 213 to the Constitution, every American is fully equal, meaning that no one is stupider, uglier, weaker, or slower than anyone else. The Handicapper General and a team of agents ensure that the laws of equality are enforced.One April, fourteen-year-old Harrison Bergeron is taken away from his parents, George and Hazel, by the government...Categorized as:
dystopia historical-fiction literary-fiction politics 20th-century audiobook book classics -
The Wife Gamble: Salinger by Charlie Hart, Frankie Love
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsShe trusts him with her secrets ... but can she trust him with her heart? In a world where everyone struggles for survival, Tia is no exception. Enemies are on to her, and she won't be able to keep her husbands safe forever.For two of her men, it might already be too late.When Tia's secret is revealed, she has no choice but to trust Salinger with her life.But he has secrets too... -
The Semplica-Girl Diaries (short story) by George Saunders
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsNovelette, Free online fiction.From newyorker.com“The Semplica-Girl Diaries” deals with a family in a not-too-distant future (or perhaps an alternate present or past?) that is struggling to keep up with the Joneses—which, in this society, means leasing some unusual garden ornaments... -
We of the Forsaken World... by Kiran Bhat
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn a distant corner of the globe, a man journeys to the birthplace of his mother, a tourist town destroyed by an industrial spill. In a nameless remote tribe, the chief’s second son is born, creating a scramble for succession as their jungles are being destroyed by loggers... -
Martial Law by Bobby Akart
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe end begins tomorrow.“Author Bobby Akart possesses the analytic capability of a supercomputer coupled with the expressiveness of an exceptional writer.”~ Amazon ReviewsA government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.~ Thomas JeffersonMartial Law is a prophetic and prescient novel by author Bobby Akart...Categorized as:
dystopia historical-fiction politics action-adventure adult apocalyptic book conspiracies -
Tank's Redemption by Michelle Woods
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAnnie Calder just wants out. Convinced by her mother to do one last job, she's not happy when she ends up stranded in the middle of nowhere. Cursing her luck, she isn't prepared for the sexy tattooed biker who rescues her. Will her secrets cost her everything, or will she escape with the life she's always wanted?Jake "Tank" Hadley was looking for a little information... -
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Motorman by David Ohle
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFiction. It is curious that a reprint could be heroic. It is more curious that a book this good could go out of print so quickly. And it is most curious that an introduction would even be required for a novel that, if you examine it carefully in the right kind oflight, might actually be seen to be steaming... -
Le Problème à trois corps by Liu Cixin, Gwennaël Gaffric
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 44 ratingsPremier volume d'une trilogie culte, récompensé par le Hugo du meilleur roman en 2015, Le Problème à trois corps signale l’arrivée d’un auteur majeur sur la scène de la hard SF... -
How to Buy a Planet by D.A. Holdsworth
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Earth has been sold to aliens. What could possibly go wrong?It’s the Year 2024. Drowning in debt following the pandemic and facing ruin, the world's leaders have taken the only logical decision.They’ve sold the planet...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction politics action-adventure aliens book contemporary fiction -
The Universe in Miniature in Miniature by Patrick Somerville
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn this genre-busting book from award-winning novelist Patrick Somerville characters, stories, and stray thoughts revolve around the "The Machine of Understanding Other People," the story of a Chicago man who is bequeathed a supernatural helmet that allows him to experience the inner worlds of those around him... -
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 sci-fi fiction mental-illness lgbtq contemporary pollution-climate-change -
Good Night, Sleep Tight by Brian Evenson
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratings“PERHAPS TOMORROW I WILL WAKE UP ANOTHER PERSON. PERHAPS TOMORROW I WILL WAKE UP NOT A PERSON AT ALL.”From the “master of literary horror” (GQ) comes a collection of new stories tracing the limits and consequences of artificial intelligence and “post-human” relationships... -
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 historical-fiction fiction sci-fi contemporary mystery book -
Misadventures with a Time Traveler by Angel Payne
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWorkaholic Allie Fine isn’t thrilled about a surprise birthday trip to the French countryside, where there’s nothing to do but drink wine and tour old castles. But boredom takes a hike when a sexy period actor shows up to be her special between-the-sheets gift.Maximillian De Leon, the towering god with eyes of gold and pecs of steel, is the most incredible lover she’s ever had... -
Memories of the Future by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
Rated: 3.92 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsWritten in Soviet Moscow in the 1920s—but considered too subversive even to show to a publisher—the seven tales included here attest to Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s boundless imagination, black humor, and breathtaking irony: a man loses his way in the vast black waste of his own small room; the Eiffel Tower runs amok; a kind soul dreams of selling “everything you need for suicide”; an absentminded...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction politics 20th-century adult anthologies classics communism -
Vida by Marge Piercy
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsOriginally published in 1979, this piece of revolutionary fiction is a bestselling author’s classic paean to the 1960s. At the center of the novel stands Vida Asch, who has lived underground for almost a decade...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction politics 20th-century adult book classics contemporary -
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The Nine-Inch Difference by Cleo Peitsche
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsBenedict is her perfect man, with one nine-inch difference…Eason anticipates her every need, but he’s not human… Jolene Harper is fed up. No more men. No more relationships. When she walks into the Lifestyle Companion dealership, she has one goal: purchase a hunky robot capable of giving her the hot domination she’s craved her entire life... -
Mothers & Other Monsters: Stories by Maureen F. McHugh
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIn her debut collection, Maureen F. McHugh examines the impacts of social and technological shifts on families. Using deceptively simple prose, she illuminates the relationship between parents and children and the expected and unexpected chasms that open between generations...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction adult anthologies contemporary family female-author fiction -
Dance Dance Revolution by Cathy Park Hong
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratings"The Guide" is a former South Korean dissident and tour guide who speaks a fluid fabricated language; "the Historian" interviews the Guide and annotates the commentaries. Cathy Park Hong's passionate and artful poem sequence weaves an ultimately revitalizing dialogue on shared experience in a globalized world, using language as subversion and disguise... -
From the Fatherland, with Love by Ryū Murakami
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsFrom the Fatherland, with Love is set in an alternative, dystopian present in which the dollar has collapsed and Japan's economy has fallen along with it. The North Korean government, sensing an opportunity, sends a fleet of rebels in the first land invasion that Japan has ever faced. Japan can't cope with the surprise onslaught of Operation From the Fatherland, with Love...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction politics adult alternate-history asian-mc book contemporary -
Neon Green by Margaret Wappler
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIt's the summer of 1994 in suburban Chicago: Forrest Gump is still in theaters, teens are reeling from the recent death of Kurt Cobain, and you can enter a sweepstakes for a spaceship from Jupiter to land in your backyard. Welcome to Margaret Wappler's slightly altered alternative '90s. Everything's pretty much as you remember it, except for the aliens...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction adult alternate-history book contemporary family female-author -
Dog Logic by Tom Strelich
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIf "Dr. Strangelove" and "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" got together and had a litter of puppies you'd get "Dog Logic", a duck-and-cover fable and love story. Funny, inflammatory, and weirdly propheticHertell Daggett is the divorced and damaged caretaker of a failing pet cemetery on the outskirts of Bakersfield, and he's just discovered a lost civilization... -
A Better World by Sarah Langan
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe author of Good Neighbors , “one of the creepiest, most unnerving deconstructions of American suburbia” (NPR), returns with a provocative and disconcerting novel about a woman questioning her new home in an exclusive company town after a night out goes terribly wrong.Welcome to Plymouth Valley... -
Low Flying Aircraft And Other Stories by J.G. Ballard
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsContents:The Ultimate CityLow-Flying AircraftThe Dead AstronautMy Dream of Flying to Wake IslandThe Life and Death of GodThe Greatest Television Show on EarthA Place and a Time to DieThe Comsat AngelsThe Beach...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies audiobook contemporary fiction -
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 politics adult anthologies contemporary fiction poc-author -
The Lake Wobegon Virus by Garrison Keillor, Richard Dworsky
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBestselling author and humorist Garrison Keillor returns to one of America's most beloved mythical towns, beset by a contagion of alarming candor. A mysterious virus has infiltrated the good people of Lake Wobegon, transmitted via unpasteurized cheese made by a Norwegian bachelor farmer, the effect of which is episodic loss of social inhibition... -
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The Hall of the Singing Caryatids by Victor Pelevin
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAfter auditioning for the part as a singing geisha at a dubious bar, Lena and eleven other “lucky” girls are sent to work at a posh underground nightclub reserved exclusively for Russia’s upper-crust elite. They are to be a sideshow attraction to the rest of the club’s entertainment, and are billed as the “famous singing caryatids.” Things only get weirder from there... -
Where the Sweet Bird Sings by Ella Joy Olsen
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn this provocative new novel, the author of Root, Petal, Thorn offers a powerful story of resilience, hope, and the secrets that, no matter how deeply hidden, can shape and ultimately unite a family. What connects us to one another? Is it shared history? Is it ancestry? Is it blood? Or is it love? People respond to tragedy in different ways. Some try to move on. Some don’t move at all... -
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Mania by Lionel Shriver
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSet in a parallel yet all too familiar near past, a brilliant subversive novel from the New York Times bestselling author about a lifelong friendship threatened by the Culture Wars. In an alternative 2011, the Mental Parity movement takes hold. Americans now embrace the sacred, universal truth that there is no such thing as variable human intelligence... -
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... -
Prime Meridian by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Rated: 3.96 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsLove, life, dreams, and a world beyond reach.Amelia dreams of Mars. The Mars of the movies and the imagination, an endless bastion of opportunities for a colonist with some guts...Categorized as:
dystopia historical-fiction literary-fiction adult audiobook book contemporary female-author -
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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 action-adventure adult apocalyptic book contemporary fiction -
When I Wake by Elizabeth Norris
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsMaya Whitaker lives and breathes ballet. On stage, wrapped in music and the movements, she knows who she is. After an argument with her stepfather leaves her financially cut off and forced to quit, she’s completely lost. It’s how she finds herself at an illegal blackout party: one minute she’s drowning in a kiss from a complete stranger, the next they’re running from the cops... -
Ink by Sabrina Vourvoulias
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsWhat happens when rhetoric about immigrants escalates to an institutionalized population control system? The near-future, dark speculative novel INK opens as a biometric tattoo is approved for use to mark temporary workers, permanent residents and citizens with recent immigration history - collectively known as inks. Set in a fictional city and small, rural town in the U.S... -
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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 historical-fiction fiction sci-fi contemporary lgbtq magical-realism -
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...Categorized as:
dystopia literary-fiction historical-fiction fiction sci-fi contemporary 21st-century mystery -
A Minor Apocalypse by Tadeusz Konwicki
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsAs in his novel The Polish Complex, Konwicki's A Minor Apocalypse stars a narrator and character named Konwicki, who has been asked to set himself on fire that evening in front of the Communist Party headquarters in Warsaw in an act of protest. He accepts the commission, but without any clear idea of whether he will actually go through with the self-immolation...Categorized as:
dystopia historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult apocalyptic book classics -
Man Who Wanted To Be Guilty by Henrik Stangerup
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn a hypothetical future where the government denies human emotion, Torben, a former novelist, murders his wife, but is unable to get the state to admit his guilt... -
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:
dystopia historical-fiction literary-fiction politics adult book coming-of-age contemporary -
The O. Henry Prize Stories 2007 by Laura Furman, Charles D'Ambrosio
Rated: 3.67 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn arresting collection of contemporary fiction at its best, these stories explore a vast range of subjects, from love and deception to war and the insidious power of class distinctions. However clearly spoken, in voices sophisticated, cunning, or na-ve, here is fiction that consistently defies our expectations...
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