Books like Screamcatcher — picked by fans

I love this book because of Katniss Everdeen's depth. She’s not just another “kickass hottie”, she’s complex, with a powerful character arc driven by a deep sense of responsibility.

The book’s commentary on mental health and Katniss' parentification resonated with me personally. The story world of all the districts and President Snow's iron grip on them is well-drawn and has parallels to our own, too. 

This book is set in Wyoming, my home state. Wyoming is a perfect setting for survival stories since it’s sparsely populated and has millions of acres of undeveloped land and wilderness areas to recreate in or explore.

When a cyber-attack collapses the American banking system, society descends into chaos—a scenario that I believe could become a reality someday in the not-so-distant future. This action-packed novel follows a group of anthropology (another of my interests) students stranded in the lawless West as they fight to survive the dissolution of America. I found the what-if scenario to be exciting and frightening, and the setting was realistic and familiar. 

I love to be surprised. Poster Girl started a bit slow, but as the story unfolded, the web of connections made this dystopian book much more interesting than I thought it would be.

The story began after a revolution. Many considered patriots by the former government were either killed or imprisoned. As the new government tries to paint itself as the liberator from oppression, similarities between the new and old regimes are exposed.

As with any good dystopian story, it shows what people will do to survive in a dangerous and unfamiliar world and how they navigate relationships within a new set of social rules.  

I was instantly drawn in by the concept of this novel. As young adults reach a certain age, they must leave their homes and journey to a far away, randomly chosen enclave in a mostly-destroyed America, ensuring genetic diversity for the small, remaining human population.

The story follows Rayne Mirago’s struggle to survive after leaving her family and home behind on her sojourn. It has action, adventure, deadly plants and animals, dangerous groups, daily struggles for food, water, and shelter, and even a sweet love story.

Each novel in the series presents a new ecosystem and a different set of threats. Not only was this novel hard to put down, but each one left me anxious for the next.

In this dystopian romance, I love how the society Claire lives in is not ours, but a futuristic, prescribed society where she does her best to fit in, but she never feels comfortable.

Sometimes I’ve felt that way about my life, too. Outside the walls, where the Wastelanders live, is violent and unknown, with a reputation like the badlands in a Mad Max movie. When a rebellion happens, and Claire is exiled, she’s immediately on her own.

I like that the people who rescue her are not what she expected and that living with them forces her to examine her beliefs. I enjoyed her character arc and look forward to seeing where John and Claire go next. 

Here is the other archetypal plot, the reverse of the first: “A Stranger Comes to Town.” In this case, a protagonist who seems an unlikely but brilliantly persuasive amalgam of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Adams—a bookish Easterner—arrives in the Dakota Territory in 1883 to make a new life for himself after the death of his wife. The new life will feature lynchings, cattle drives, saloons, brothels, and an even harsher wilderness than Diony Hall found in Kentucky. The author’s cinematic Warlock is a western masterpiece. This forgotten title is every bit as good.

Fiffer describes himself as a lawyer, journalist, and author. For the story he tells, these turn out to be perfect qualifications because he is not so much interested in telling the reader about the animal as in the scandal and intrigue that surrounded the discovery of this now-famous museum specimen. A fast-paced tale of unexpected twists and turns, when the FBI appears you start to wonder if you haven’t slipped into the pages of a David Baldacci thriller. It's a great true story and one likely to raise your eyebrows.

I loved the searing honesty and historical drama of this book. Clarren bravely examines her family’s settler past, telling the story of how her great-great-grandparents fled antisemitism in Russia and settled in South Dakota. Then she tells the story of the Lakota indigenous people they displaced. I was so inspired by the moral integrity she shows as she interviews descendants of both sides of this conflict.

She asks hard questions about what happened in settler colonialism, why we know so little about it, and what we should do about it now. She includes resources to examine our own histories. A brilliant and motivating book!  

Sometimes it takes dust, drought, and desperation for us to realize what we’re capable of changing. Landscape has the power to alter us and for Rachel it both whittles away and fortifies. The wrath of nature is a tangible presence in her story, though we come to realize the hostile land and searing sky pale in comparison to the silent destruction wrought by the person in whom she has placed her life’s trust. Weisgarber’s ability to slow time down to the painful passing of seconds draws me in every time. 

My late husband was a child immigrant, and for many years I listened as he and his family shared their experiences of balancing the opportunities this country offered with the deep and abiding loss they felt for the world they left behind.

Perhaps that’s why The Streel struck such a deep chord. It’s a mystery –and the first book in an enticing new series – but it’s also the story of young Bridget Reardon, an Irish immigrant who gives up all she holds dear to build a new life for herself in the tumultuous America of the 1880s.

I empathized with Bridget as she ached for the past, cheered her on as she outsmarted a clever killer, and look forward to her continuing saga in Mary Logue’s next volume, The Big Sugar.