Battle Royale and The Hunger Games are the closest matches to Stephen King’s The Long Walk. At ReadNext, we match read-alikes on premise shape. Battle Royale and The Hunger Games each stage a forced contest for young people run by a government. The Road is the pick if you want endurance more than a contest, since it is also a grueling journey. In The Long Walk, one hundred boys walk Route 1 at 4 miles per hour, and the contest continues until one walker remains.
Two picks put young people in a fight to the death, so check the content notes before you read.
Seven Books Like The Long Walk
Death Games Staged by a State
1. Battle Royale
Koushun Takami
Battle Royale is the closest match on premise. Koushun Takami’s Japanese novel follows junior high school students forced to fight each other to the death in a program run by the Republic of Greater East Asia. Like The Long Walk, a government runs a forced contest that the students are made to join. The students kill one another on the page, so younger readers should skip it.
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2. The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins
The Hunger Games is the other close match. Suzanne Collins’s young adult novel is set in Panem. Each of 12 districts sends two children aged 12 to 18 into an annual battle royale, and the last survivor is the victor. Like The Long Walk, its contest ends with one winner. Katniss Everdeen, who is 16, narrates. The children are chosen to fight to the death.
Find it on AmazonSurvival and Endurance against the Odds
3. Lord of the Flies
William Golding
Lord of the Flies is William Golding’s novel about a group of British boys stranded on an uninhabited island. Their attempts to govern themselves lead to a descent into savagery. It matches The Long Walk on a group of young characters. It is a popularly assigned book in schools.
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4. The Road
Cormac McCarthy
The Road is Cormac McCarthy’s 2006 post-apocalyptic novel about a father and his young son. They make a grueling journey over several months across land blasted by an unspecified cataclysm. It matches The Long Walk on endurance. Open Library says bands of cannibals roam the roads the pair cross. Pick it over The Hunger Games if the walking matters more than the contest.
Find it on AmazonAltered Societies
5. 1984
George Orwell
George Orwell’s 1984, also published as Nineteen Eighty-Four, is a dystopian novel about totalitarianism and mass surveillance. In it, the Party uses omnipresent government surveillance and constant propaganda. Like The Long Walk, a state watches its people and enforces the rules. Great Britain, renamed Airstrip One, is a province of the superstate Oceania, led by Big Brother.
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6. The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood
Canadian writer Margaret Atwood’s novel is set in Gilead, a totalitarian state in a near-future New England. The narrator, Offred, is one of the women forcibly assigned to bear children for high-status men. Like The Long Walk, a regime controls the lives of the people in the book, and the story is told from inside it. Its premise centers on forced childbearing.
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7. Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro
Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 science fiction novel is set in an alternative England of the 1990s. It follows students at an elite boarding school and explores friendship, memory and what it means to be human. As The Long Walk is set in an alternative United States, this one is set in an alternative England. The sources we used list no content note for it. That does not mean it has none.
Find it on AmazonWhat Made The Long Walk Work
The shared shape of The Long Walk has three parts.
- A forced contest where walkers cannot stop. The walkers must keep 4 miles per hour, and a walker who collects three warnings and slows again is shot. Battle Royale and The Hunger Games match it with a state-run fight to the death.
- A government that watches and enforces the rules. The Squads, a secret police force led by a figure known as the Major, supervise the walk. 1984 and The Handmaid’s Tale match it with a totalitarian state.
- Young characters bonding while the group shrinks. Ray Garraty, a boy from Maine, forms friendships with other walkers as the contest goes on. Lord of the Flies matches it with a group of young characters, and The Road with a grueling journey.
Content Notes for Younger and Sensitive Readers
Battle Royale and The Hunger Games put young people in a fight to the death, and Lord of the Flies describes a descent into savagery. For a different starting list, take the What should I read quiz.
The other four picks come with these notes. Plot and content details come from Wikipedia and Open Library descriptions.
- The Road: cannibal bands roam the roads the father and son cross, according to Open Library.
- 1984: the sources we used list no content note beyond its premise of surveillance and propaganda.
- The Handmaid’s Tale: the premise centers on women forcibly assigned to bear children for high-status men.
- Never Let Me Go: the sources we used list no content note. A missing note does not mean a book has no mature content.
What to Read After These
The Hunger Games is the first novel of a young adult dystopian series, so readers who finish it can keep going in that world. Books like The Hunger Games has more read-alikes for it.
If 1984 appeals to you, books like 1984 is the next page to try. If you want more Stephen King after The Long Walk, see Stephen King books for beginners.
For other titles, Books Like the One You Just Finished points to more read-alike pages.
Which Pick to Start With
Choose by the part of The Long Walk you want more of. If you want the contest, start with Battle Royale and then read The Hunger Games. Both put young people in a forced contest run by a government, and they are the closest premise matches here.
If you want endurance, pick The Road or Lord of the Flies. The Road is a grueling journey across blasted land, and Lord of the Flies is a survival story on an island.
If you want the government and its control, pick 1984 or The Handmaid’s Tale. Both put a totalitarian state at the center.
If a fight to the death is more than you want, skip the first group and read the notes under the other picks before choosing.
