13 Dystopian Novels That Hit A Little Too Close To Home RN

This is probably one of the most popular book that everyone’s been raving about for the past few months. The novel, written in 2014, and based in North America, deals with a pandemic that hits civilisation, and the its aftermath as small remaining groups of survivors try to rebuild their lives. This book has received high praise from authors like George. R. R. Martin and Margaret Atwood and should definitely be on your quarantine reading list. Get it here.

The plot of this novel revolves around a plague that has destroyed a major part of the human race. The protagonist is a man names Isherwood Williams, who returns from a wilderness trip to his home in San Francisco to find that civilisation has been destroyed. He encounters a female survivor, and starts a small community with her, and they try to return to a simpler way of life, like our ancestors. Get it here.

This surreal dystopian book revolves around a plague that renders people to first lose their shadows, and then slowly their memories as well. Get it here.

The protagonist, Hig, believes he’s the sole survivor or a flu pandemic that destroyed everything and everyone he knows. Now, he lives in an airport with his dog and a mercurial misanthrope. However, when he hears a random transmission through the radio, he starts believing in a possibility of a better world outside and risks his life to leave and try to find it. Get it here.

The Stand is a post-apocalyptic fantasy novel based on a pandemic caused by a weaponised strain of influenza that wipes out almost the entire population of the world. Get it here.

This intellectual and deeply thought-provoking novel revolves around a futuristic dystopian society in which viruses have become a tool used to educate and benefit humans. This book deals deals with concepts of mortality, health and sickness. Get it here.

The protagonist of this novel, Joy, is a lonely woman who spends her days working the graveyard shift at the grocery store in Boston, and simultaneously trying to deal with her troubled past through an unhealthy addiction to cough syrup. However, her life turns around when a sickness spreads through the city killing thousands of people, except Joy, who turns out to be immune to the disease. She submits herself herself to a hospital where she undergoes various peculiar treatments and forms bonds with the other hospital patients. Get it here.

This historical fiction novel explores the events in a town called Commonwealth that’s hit by the Spanish flu epidemic during World War I. The story revolves around how the affected people of the town start to turn against each other. Get it here.

This chilly dystopian novel deals with an epidemic that blinds people. The authorities confine the affected people to a mental asylum guarded by blind guards. When a fire destroys the asylum, the blind people head towards the city and the rest of the novel deals with how the civilised society changes with the onset of the epidemic. Get it here.

This is another great dystopian novel from the award-winning author of novels like Alias Grace and The Handmaid’s Tale. In a world overwhelmed by a plague, a man named Jimmy who might just be the last remaining human, is mourning the loss of his closest friends, Crake and Oryx. The book follows his story, as he searches for answers and tries to make sense of the new reality. Get it here.

Based in contemporary Mexico, the noir novel of this novel is about a feud between two mafia families during the aftermath of a deadly plague that's hit the city. Get it here.

The protagonist, Candace Chen, works in a publishing house that produces novelty Bibles outsourced from a factory in China whose workers are affected with a fatal lung disease due to terrible working conditions. When the fever spreads to the rest of the world via mass produced jun from China, Candace and her group seek refuge in a mall where they rely on tips from Google on how to survive a zombie pandemic. This is a coming-of-age and intelligent take on our worlds capitalism and consumerism. Get it here.

This dark, apocalyptic and futuristic fantasy is set in the late 21st century at the end of human civilisation. This novel is a heavy take on mankind’s inevitable destruction in a futuristic theme by the queen of science fiction. Get it here.