The dystopian books I’ve always found the most interesting (read: scary) are the ones that take things that really happened in the past or are happening now, and use them as inspiration for their crumbling society. I get this overwhelming feeling that it could happen because so much is based in reality, and that makes it all the more terrifying. Take, for example, The Forsaken by Lisa M. Stasse. I was reading it the other day (because it’s one of our free reads until April 10th), and it struck me that the premise seemed a bit familiar. Not because I’d read the story before (this book is truly unique), but because in this book, our main character Alenna is sent to an island where her country sends all potential criminals. If that doesn’t sound familiar, maybe you haven’t gotten to that history lesson yet. Once upon a time, the British government sent all their criminals to Australia. Yeah, a country sent all of its criminals to an island and thought that would go over well. This connection between reality and The Forsaken is made all the more creepy when you think about the old phrase “History repeats itself.” If we came up with a test that could predict people’s capacities for violence, it’s completely plausible that we could go back to shipping away our undesirable people out of fear. *shudder*

The Forsaken certainly isn’ the only dystopian that hits a little too close to reality. Continue reading for the complete list of my favorite dystopians that draw on real life. Read through them and take to the comments to let me know…are you creeped out yet?