6 books like Raya and the Last Dragon
- The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang — Raya and the Last Dragon splits a land into mistrustful territories where old alliances have calcifi…
- She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan — Raya and the Last Dragon follows a warrior who refuses her assigned role in a divided kingdom, and S…
- The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon — Raya and the Last Dragon hinges on dragons as both saviors and symbols of a fractured past, and The …
- The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri — Raya and the Last Dragon drops you into a fantasy inspired by Southeast Asian cultures where politic…
- City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty — Raya and the Last Dragon throws its hero into a world where ancient magic has become a source of div…
- The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart — Raya and the Last Dragon presents a kingdom shattered into islands that have turned against each oth…
Picked for the feeling of Raya and the Last Dragon, not its genre. Each one is explained below. One movie isn’t much to go on: rate four more and the books are picked for you.
Why these books
Raya and the Last Dragon asks you to believe in trust when the world has shattered into factions that can barely speak to one another. It moves through Southeast Asian-inspired landscapes with kinetic fight choreography and a humor that never undercuts the stakes. The film builds toward reconciliation without pretending betrayal doesn't leave scars, and it treats both magic and political fracture as forces that demand strategy, not just hope. These books carry the same weight: they know that rebuilding a broken world requires more than defeating the villain.
The Poppy War
Raya and the Last Dragon splits a land into mistrustful territories where old alliances have calcified into enmity, and The Poppy War does the same with a fantasy China fractured by war and colonial invasion. Rin rises through a military academy only to discover that power demands impossible moral compromises. The magic here is shamanic and devastating, drawn from gods who care nothing for human suffering. Kuang writes action with the same propulsive clarity as Raya's fight scenes, but she never lets violence feel consequence-free. Both stories insist that survival depends on strategy as much as strength.
She Who Became the Sun
Raya and the Last Dragon follows a warrior who refuses her assigned role in a divided kingdom, and She Who Became the Sun gives you Zhu, a peasant girl who steals her dead brother's identity to escape starvation and claim a destiny that was never meant for hers. Parker-Chan sets this reimagined founding of the Ming Dynasty in a China where ambition and survival are indistinguishable. The prose moves with the same swift economy as Raya's river chases and temple raids. Both stories understand that trust is a gamble, not a virtue, and that the cost of saving a world might be losing yourself.
The Priory of the Orange Tree
Raya and the Last Dragon hinges on dragons as both saviors and symbols of a fractured past, and The Priory of the Orange Tree builds an epic around two nations divided by opposing dragon mythologies. Shannon weaves together a queen under pressure to produce an heir, a dragon rider in exile, and a mage guarding an ancient order. The book sprawls across continents but never loses the thread of political tension and the question of who gets to rewrite history. Both stories treat magic as something that must be understood, not just wielded, and both insist that collaboration is harder and more necessary than conquest.
The Jasmine Throne
Raya and the Last Dragon drops you into a fantasy inspired by Southeast Asian cultures where political fracture runs deeper than any individual conflict, and The Jasmine Throne sets a similar stage in an empire built on the ruins of a magical civilization. Suri pairs a princess imprisoned by her own brother with a servant hiding revolutionary ties and forbidden magic. The romance develops slowly alongside intricate palace intrigue and a rebellion that could either restore balance or shatter what remains. Both stories know that rebuilding trust requires dismantling the systems that broke it in the first place.
City of Brass
Raya and the Last Dragon throws its hero into a world where ancient magic has become a source of division rather than unity, and City of Brass does the same in a djinn city riven by ethnic and religious factionalism. Nahri, a con artist in Cairo, discovers she has daeva blood and gets dragged into a centuries-old conflict she barely understands. Chakraborty writes political maneuvering with the same clarity as Raya's action sequences, and she never lets magic paper over the material consequences of power. Both stories insist that reconciliation means facing history, not erasing it.
The Bone Shard Daughter
Raya and the Last Dragon presents a kingdom shattered into islands that have turned against each other, and The Bone Shard Daughter gives you an archipelago empire ruled by a dying emperor whose magic literally consumes his people. Stewart braids together multiple perspectives, including a woman with no memory fighting to prove herself and a rebel seeking to dismantle the bone shard system entirely. The magic here is eerie and personal, tied to identity in ways that mirror Raya's questions about legacy and belonging. Both stories understand that saving a world means more than defeating darkness; it means changing the structures that sustain it.
Is Raya and the Last Dragon based on a book?
Raya and the Last Dragon isn’t based on a book — it’s an original screenplay by Qui Nguyen and Adele Lim.
What should I read if I loved Raya and the Last Dragon?
Start with The Poppy War, She Who Became the Sun and The Priory of the Orange Tree. 6 books on this page were picked for the feeling of Raya and the Last Dragon, not its genre, with a reason for each.
Which book is most like Raya and the Last Dragon?
The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang. Raya and the Last Dragon splits a land into mistrustful territories where old alliances have calcified into enmity, and The Poppy War does the same with a fantasy China fractured by war and colonial invasion.
These are for everyone who loved Raya and the Last Dragon. Want books picked for you?
Someone who loved Raya and the Last Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs reads different books from someone who loved Raya and the Last Dragon and Blade Runner 2049. One movie isn’t much to go on. Rate four more — Raya and the Last Dragon already counts — and the books are picked for you.
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