You were drawn into Nell and Eva’s off-grid routines—the rationed gasoline for the generator, the acorn flour, the wary watchfulness after their parents are gone. In The Dog Stars, Hig and his dog patrol a small airstrip and nearby rivers, hunting, fishing, and bartering as civilization crumbles. That same intimate, day-to-day survival you loved—tracking supplies, scanning the treeline for danger, finding brief grace in nature—unfolds here with a similarly tender, solitary pulse.

If Nell’s meticulous lists and the sisters’ quiet rituals in the cabin gripped you—the gardening, preserving, and learning to live by the rhythms of the forest—The Wall gives you that same close-held focus. A woman finds herself cut off from the world by an invisible barrier and must survive with only a dog, a cow, and a cat. Like Nell tracking every jar and seed, she keeps a spare, observant chronicle of chopping wood, milking, and making it through each season in a single, secluded place.

If you loved reading Nell’s diary as she records dwindling stores, failed plans, and fragile hopes, Z for Zachariah mirrors that immediacy. Ann, a teenage girl, keeps a journal in a secluded valley after a nuclear disaster. As with Nell noting every candle and can, Ann’s entries trace planting, foraging, and the careful negotiations when a stranger appears—capturing the same intimate, first-person tension between solitude, resourcefulness, and trust.

If you connected with Nell and Eva’s fierce adaptability—Eva relearning her future after injury, Nell redefining family and home—Parable of the Sower centers another unforgettable young woman in collapse. Lauren Olamina must protect her community, navigate predatory threats like the sisters do after the raid, and build something new from ruins. You’ll recognize the same clear-eyed grit and hard-won hope that carried the sisters through the forest.

If Nell’s passage from sheltered teenager—cataloging dance rehearsals and encyclopedia lessons with Eva—to a self-reliant adult spoke to you, The Age of Miracles offers a similarly poignant coming-of-age. Julia navigates friendships, first love, and family fractures as the Earth’s rotation slows. Like Nell’s dawning acceptance of a life remade by scarcity and loss, Julia’s voice captures how a girl’s inner life shifts when the world tilts under her feet.