When looking over my book list, it seems like I’ve read a lot of zombie books lately so I thought I’d feature them as my new Read-a-Like List. Be sure to put any zombie books I’ve missed in the comments section.
Times Square, New York City: The first ever mass séance is broadcasting live on the Sunrise morning show. If it works, the spirits of the departed on the other side will have a brief window — just a few minutes — to send a final message to their grieving loved ones.
Clasping hands in an impenetrable grip, three mediums call to their spirit guides as the audience looks on in breathless anticipation. The mediums slump over, slackjawed — catatonic. And in cemeteries surrounding Manhattan, fragments of old corpses dig themselves out of the ground….
The spirits have returned. The dead are walking. They will seek out those who loved them in life, those they left behind…but they are savage and they are hungry. They are no longer your mother or father, your brother or sister, your best friend or lover.
They are soulless.
The horror spreads quickly, droves of the ravenous dead seeking out the living — shredding flesh from bone, feeding. But a disparate group of unlikely heroes — two headstrong college rivals, a troubled gang member, a teenage pop star and her bodyguard — is making its way to the center of the nightmare, fighting to protect their loved ones, fighting for their lives, and fighting to end the madness.
In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska’s ice. Thus was Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born.
But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead.
Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue’s widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenaged boy to support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history.
His quest will take him under the wall and into a city teeming with ravenous undead, air pirates, criminal overlords, and heavily armed refugees. And only Briar can bring him out alive.
For the first time in Killington High School history, the Jackrabbits football team is one win away from the district championship where it will face its most vicious rival, the Elmwood Heights Badgers. On the way to the game, the Jackrabbits’s bus plunges into a river, killing every player except for bad-boy quarterback Cole Logan who is certain the crash was no accident—given that Cole himself was severely injured in a brutal attack by three ski-masked men earlier that day. Bent on payback, Cole turns to a mysterious fan skilled in black magic to resurrect his teammates. But unless the undead Jackrabbits defeat their murderous rival on the field, the team is destined for hell. In a desperate race against time, with only his coach’s clever daughter, Savannah Hickman, to assist him, Cole must lead his zombie team to victory. . . in a final showdown where the stakes aren’t just life or death—but damnation or salvation. Boundlessly imaginative and thrillingly satisfying, Play Dead gives small-town Texas an electrifying jolt of the supernatural, and is unquestioningly The Zombie Novel of the Year!
There’s a nasty flu going round. An epidemic, they call it. The posters say to cover your mouth when you sneeze, and throw away the tissue. But such simple measures won’t stop this flu. Because when you catch the flu, armed police come and lock you in your house to die alone. When you catch this flu, it kills you in days. And when you catch this flu, two hours after it’s killed you, your eyelids snap open again…”Flu” is a pacey, terrifying, frighteningly real zombie horror story.
In Mary’s world there are simple truths.
The Sisterhood always knows best.
The Guardians will protect and serve.
The Unconsecrated will never relent.
And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village; the fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth.But, slowly, Mary’s truths are failing her. She’s learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, and the Guardians and their power, and about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness. When the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, she must choose between her village and her future-between the one she loves and the one who loves her.
And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded in so much death?
In the zombie-infested, post-apocalyptic America where Benny Imura lives, every teenager must find a job by the time they turn fifteen or get their rations cut in half. Benny doesn’t want to apprentice as a zombie hunter with his boring older brother Tom, but he has no choice. He expects a tedious job whacking zoms for cash—but what he gets is a vocation that will teach him what it means to be human.
Phoebe is just your typical goth girl with a crush. He’s strong and silent…and dead.
All over the country, a strange phenomenon is happening. Some teenagers who die aren’t staying dead. They are coming back to life, but they are no longer the same—they stutter, and their reactions to everything are slower. Termed “living impaired” or “differently biotic,” they are doing their best to fit into a society that doesn’t want them.
Fitting in is hard enough when you don’t have the look or attitude, but when almost everyone else is alive and you’re not, it’s close to impossible. The kids at Oakvale High don’t want to take classes or eat in the cafeteria next to someone who isn’t breathing. And there are no laws that exist to protect the differently biotic from the people who want them to disappear—for good.
With her pale skin and Goth wardrobe, Phoebe has never run with the popular crowd. But no one can believe it when she falls for Tommy Williams, the leader of the dead kids. Not her best friend, Margi, whose fear of the differently biotic is deeply rooted in guilt over the past. And especially not her neighbor, Adam, the star of the football team. Adam has just realized his feelings for Phoebe run much deeper than just friendship. He would do anything for her, but what if protecting Tommy is the one thing that would make her happy?
Fifteen-year-old Megan Berry is a Zombie Settler by birth, which means she’s part-time shrink to a bunch of dead people with a whole lot of issues.All Megan wants is to be normal and go to homecoming, of course. Unfortunately, it’s a little difficult when your dates keep getting interrupted by a bunch of slobbering Undead.
Things are about to get even more complicated for Megan. Someone in school is using black magic to turn average, angsty Undead into flesh-eating Zombies, and it’s looking like homecoming will turn out to be a very different kind of party the bloody kind.
Megan must stop the Zombie apocalypse descending on Carol, Arkansas. Her life and more importantly, homecoming depends on it.
Quiet, unpopular,non-cheerleading Mia is blissfully happy. She is dating super hot football god Rob, and he actually likes her and asked her to prom! Enter Samantha–cheerleading goddess and miss popularity–who starts making a move for Rob. With prom in a few days, Mia needs to act fast. So she turns to her best friend, Candice, and decides to do a love spell on Rob. Unfortunately, she ends up inflicting a zombie virus onto her whole class, making herself their leader! At first she is flattered that everyone is treating her like a queen. But then zombie hunter hottie Chase explains they are actually fattening her up, because in a few days, Mia will be the first course in their new diet. She’s sure she and Chase can figure something out, but she suggests that no one wear white to prom, because things could get very messy.
Algonquin “Alley” Rhodes, the high school newspaper’s music critic, meets an intriguing singer, Doug, while reviewing a gig. He’s a weird-looking guy—goth, but he seems sincere about it, like maybe he was into it back before it was cool. She introduces herself after the set, asking if he lives in Cornersville, and he replies, in his slow, quiet murmur, “Well, I don’t really live there, exactly. . . .”
When Alley and Doug start dating, Alley is falling so hard she doesn’t notice a few odd signs: he never changes clothes, his head is a funny shape, and he says practically nothing out loud. Finally Marie, the school paper’s fashion editor, points out the obvious: Doug isn’t just a really sincere goth. He’s a zombie. Horrified that her feelings could have allowed her to overlook such a flaw, Alley breaks up with Doug, but learns that zombies are awfully hard to get rid of—at the same time she learns that vampires, a group as tightly-knit as the mafia, don’t think much of music critics who make fun of vampires in reviews. . . .
Ten-year-old Nathan Abercrombie is having a really bad day. First, Shawna Lanchester, the prettiest girl in his class, doesn’t invite him to her party. Then he gets picked last in gym class. Things couldn’t get any worse…until he gets doused with an experimental serum that turns him into a half-dead zombie!
From the moment Hannah Sanders arrived in town, she felt there was something wrong.
A lot of houses were for sale, and the town seemed infected by an unearthly quiet. And then, on Hannah’s first day of classes, she ran into a group of cheerleaders — the most popular girls in school.
The odd thing was that they were nearly identical in appearance: blonde, beautiful, and deathly pale.
But Hannah wants desperately to fit in — regardless of what her friend Lukas is telling her: if she doesn’t watch her back, she’s going to be blonde and popular and dead — just like all the other zombies in this town….
Just because you don’t have a pulse doesn’t mean you can’t be perky.
One second, sophomore Karen Vera’s on top of the most fabulous cheer pyramid ever. The next, she’s lying on the pavement with seriously unflattering cranial damage. Freakishly alive without a pulse, Karen learns that she’s a genetically undead zombie.
Soon, Karen is sent off to DEAD High, a boarding school for the “death-challenged,” and her non-life is suddenly an epic disaster. She’s stuck with a greasy-haired, wannabe-Goth roommate who hates her guts. She’s chowing down on animal brains every day to prevent rot (um, ew?). Even worse, someone is attacking students and harvesting their brains for a dark ritual . . . and it might be the hottest guy at DEAD High, the one who makes Karen’s non-beating heart flutter!
As more brains are stolen—including her best friend’s—Karen tracks down the brain snatcher to save her fellow students from certain zombie death.
I know BONESHAKER and PLAY DEAD aren’t considered Young Adult novels, but I feel they are completely appropriate for the age level.
Well, what did I miss?

































































There’s Never Slow Dance with a Zombie : )
Love the new challenge! Zombie books are my favorite…don’t forget The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan:-)
Kim´s last blog ..Summer Break Reading Challenge 7
I almost put it on the list, but didn’t because I didn’t like it very much. BUT, you are totally right.
Karin
I didn’t put the sequels to the books I listed because the post would have been way too long. So yes, there is THE DEAD-TOSSED WAVES which is the companion to THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH. Also, there is KISS OF LIFE and PASSING STRANGE, the sequels to GENERATION DEAD. There is UNDEAD MUCH? – the sequel to YOU ARE SO UNDEAD TO ME and David Lubar has two or three sequels to MY ROTTEN LIFE that are available.
I loved Zombie Queen and You Are So Undead to Me, great list!
So many great covers on these zombie-rific books. I have Flu and Rot & Ruin on my wishlist. Thanks for this list!
Mrs. DeRaps´s last blog ..Book Review- The Mosts by Melissa Senate
Hope you enjoy ROT & RUIN!
Jonathan maberry´s last blog ..Why Zombies – Part 2
FLU was a bit of a disappointment for me. Maybe you’ll like it better. Also, it isn’t Young Adult either. There is a lot of language.
David Moody’a Hater. But it’s not zombies in the traditional sense.
I think this is a cool post, but you put the same description on the last two books. Is one of them a sequel?
Thanks Majken. I fixed it. I must have just been copying and pasting too fast.
Karin
These may not be YA but are all zombie !
World War Z / Max Brooks
Patient Zero / Jonathan Mayberry
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies / Jane Austen and Seth Graham-Smith
Infinity: chronicles of Nick by Sherrilyn Kenyon
Part zombie, part featuring the characters from her Dark Hunter’s series..
Just wanted to say thanks for posting this list! I love booklists like this (it’s the librarian in me). I have to admit, I am late to the Zombie party, though I did read Generation Dead last summer and loved it.
I’m sure there’s probably quite a few zombie books that aren’t technically YA but would appeal to teens. Might be a good idea for a follow up list?
I really enjoy your blog. Keep up the good work!
Alex Award winner The Reapers are the Angels by Alden Bell
Great list!
I would love to offer up my debut novel – Cold Faith and Zombies – for sacrifice.
Thanks for the great blog!