One of my favorite shows on Netflix is the science fiction anthology series Black Mirror. It’s like The Twilight Zone for the Millennial / Gen Z generation and I’ve noticed quite a few 2019 YA titles are giving me serious Black Mirror vibes.
If You Liked Black Museum….
The Obsoletes by Simeon Mills
Black Museum and many other episodes of Black Mirror examine what it means to be human and what is considered deserving of humanity. In this debut YA novel, a pair of teenage brothers hide that they are robots from the humans in their small Michigan town for fear of being disassembled.
If You Liked Be Right Back
No One Here is Lonely by Sarah Everett
This is the book that inspired this list. The Black Mirror episode Be Right Back follows a woman who uses a service to recreate a digital and then lifelike version of her dead boyfriend. In this sophomore book from author Sarah Everett, a teen girl falls in love with a digital version of her dead crush.
If You Liked Shut Up and Dance
Swipe Right For Murder by Derek Milman
While I love the more science-fiction Black Mirror episodes, the show is really about how technology affects our lives. In Shut Up and Dance, a teenage boy’s bad choices online send him on a blackmail fueled wild goose chase. In Swipe Right For Murder a 17-year-old in New York swipes right on the wrong person and finds himself labeled a cyber-terrorist and on the run from the government.
If You Liked Nosedive
Rated by Melissa Grey
In Nosedive we enter a world where ratings on an app mean everything and watch a woman slowly lose everything as she tries to get more points. In this new book from Girl At Midnight author, the Rating system is everything to the students of the prestigious Maplethorpe Academy.
Bonus Picks!
When Zan moves away from her best friend she starts to suspect something isn’t quite right with her best friend’s suddenly sunny, vapid social media posts. This sort of sounds like aMarina Joyce situation.
Okay, so I’m not sure this is technically YA but Veronica Roth has a lot of YA appeal. This new release from Roth is a collection of novella-length stories set in the future.
Do you have a favorite episode of Black Mirror ? Let me know of some books you would rec to Black Mirror fans in the comments below !
I’m a lifelong reader who started blogging about YA books in 2011 but now I read in just about every genre! I love YA coming of age stories, compelling memoirs and genre bending SFF. You can find me talking all things romance at Romance and Sensibility.