Books like Squid Game (TV series)

Deadly games, desperate players and sharp stories about money and survival.

11 books

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1Battle Royale
Battle Royale
Kōshun Takami
A Japanese class of teenagers is forced into a government-run fight to the death on an island, a direct match for Squid Game's deadly competition.
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2The Hunger Games
The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins
Children are forced to fight to the death in a televised survival contest, and the story critiques inequality and spectacle much as Squid Game does.
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3The Running Man
The Running Man
Stephen King
Writing as Richard Bachman, King imagines a dystopian TV game show where contestants hunted for entertainment fight to survive, satirizing class and media.
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4The Long Walk
The Long Walk
Stephen King
Young men compete in a deadly marching contest where the last one standing wins, a tense survival competition with a bleak view of power.
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5Snowpiercer
Snowpiercer
Benjamin Legrand
Survivors on a perpetual train divided by rigid class lines rebel against their rulers, a graphic-novel satire of inequality with deadly stakes.
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6The Maze Runner
The Maze Runner
James Dashner
Boys trapped in a deadly maze must solve its rules to survive, a tense survival puzzle that fits viewers drawn to forced, lethal games.
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7The Lottery and Other Stories
The Lottery and Other Stories
Shirley Jackson
The title story depicts a village ritual in which one person is chosen to die, a chilling satire of blind acceptance of deadly, arbitrary systems.
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8Lord of the Flies
Lord of the Flies
William Golding
Schoolboys stranded on an island turn a survival struggle into brutal, deadly competition, with a sharp satire of how civilization breaks down under pressure.
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9Red Rising
Red Rising
Pierce Brown
A caste-based society forces young people into lethal competitions, drawing on the same themes of rigid inequality and survival as Squid Game.
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10The Testing
The Testing
Joelle Charbonneau
Top graduates compete in a deadly final exam that decides their futures, a tense survival-style contest set in a rigidly stratified society.
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11Ender's Game
Ender's Game
Orson Scott Card
Children are pushed through brutal training games with deadly stakes, a tense competition story about manipulation and survival.
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