Glory O'Brien's History of the Future by A.S. King (2014)

Fascinatingly weird and marvelously, utterly original young adult novel about a girl graduating from high school who drinks a petrified bat (what?) with her best friend who lives on the commune across the street and finds that she can see people's future. And a big war is coming.

Really well told and very chilling, and in the midst of all this strangeness, King creates interesting and realistic relationships between friends and family members.

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion (2011)

  

I picked up this zombie romantic comedy purely because they made a movie of it and the trailer looked cute.  By the way, isn't that cover great?

This is a very endearing zombie romantic comedy--yes, zombie romantic comedy--that tells the story of R, a zombie wandering around in a zombie vs. survivalist humans world.  The story is told from R's point of view, and there are many laugh out loud moments.  When he eats the brain of a young human and falls for his girlfriend Julie, it gets a bit more serious.

But throughout, it still has lovely touches of humor. Marion does a beautiful job of getting inside R's head and still showing what he looks and sounds like from the outside.  It's thoughtful and philosophical about the end of the world in a way that most zombie, post-apocalyptic novels don't bother with--certainly not zombie movies anyway. R, Julie and her friend Nora are very endearing characters as are the complex leaders of the humans.

Really a great book and rather gentle and sweet for a book about zombies. The book was blurbed by Josh Bazell, which is an excellent readalike in tone and humor.  Interestingly, Isaac Marion is publishing The New Hunger, the prequel to Warm Bodies only as an e-book right now. 

The Other Side of the Island by Allegra Goodman (2008)

Set in a post-apocalyptic, future society run by The Corporation, Honor is willing to get along by obeying the rules at her school, but her parents are rebellious and eventually disappear. Would provide good discussion for a teen book club.  I do love a good post-apocalypse story.

Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (2006)

Gripping post-apocalyptic tale of what happens when an asteroid hits the moon (long story short: nothing good). Narrated in a diary format by the teenage girl who survives with her family after the world falls after.  Followed by an interesting sequel called The Dead and the Gone, which follows a teenage boy living through the same disaster in New York City.  However, skip the final book of the trilogy (The World We Live In) which awkwardly ties both stories together with a convoluted romance.  Really badly done.