Essential Dark Academia Books

Donna Tartt’s literary classic is the book that started it all! Lured by their charismatic classics professor at their elite New England college, a clever group of students discover an exciting and fulfilling life away from the rest of their peers. But in this world, the lines of morality are blurred and these kids will discover how hard it can be to truly live and how easy it is to kill.

A Taiwanese American woman’s coming-of-consciousness ignites eye-opening revelations and chaos on a college campus in this outrageously hilarious and startlingly tender debut novel. For readers of Paul Beatty’s The Sellout and Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown, this uproarious and bighearted satire is a blistering send-up of privilege and power in America and a profound reckoning of individual complicity and unspoken rage.

As children, Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy were students at Hailsham, an exclusive boarding school secluded in the English countryside. It was a place of mercurial cliques and mysterious rules where teachers were constantly reminding their charges of how special they were. Now, years later, Kathy is a young woman. Ruth and Tommy have reentered her life. And for the first time she is beginning to look back at their shared past and understand just what it is that makes them special — and how that gift will shape the rest of their time together.

Samantha couldn’t be more of an outsider in her small MFA program. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most of her fiction writing cohort—a clique of twee rich girls who call each other “Bunny,” and seem to move and speak as one. But everything changes when Samantha is invited to the Bunnies’ “Smut Salon,” and she plunges deeper and deeper into their saccharine world. Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination.

A senior at Harvard, Will fits comfortably in his carefully curated roles: a perfect student, an art history major, and sometimes an artist, the eldest son who has always been his parents’ American Dream. But when a mysterious Chinese benefactor reaches out with an impossible—and illegal—job offer, Will finds himself something else as well: the leader of a heist to steal back five priceless Chinese sculptures, looted from Beijing centuries ago.

In the first book of the Scholomance trilogy, we meet Galadriel “El” Higgins, who is a heroine unlike any other. At the Scholomance, a school of black magic, El learns to conceal the dark forces within her so that she can survive until graduation day.

Everyone knows the Ivies. Far more important are the Ivies. The Ivies at Claflin Academy, that is. Five girls with the same mission: to get into the Ivy League by any means necessary. Alexa Donne delivers a nail-biting and timely thriller about teens who will stop at nothing to get into the college of their dreams. Too bad no one told them murder isn’t an extracurricular.

Cady Archer is starting college and following in her brother Eric’s footsteps by attending Harvard University; a decision based off her obsession because Eric developed paranoid schizophrenia and took his own life the year before. Cady is convinced that she will find the answers to her brother’s death, but she may be following in his steps in more ways than one as she begins to hear voices of her own…

Isabella is beautiful, inscrutable, and popular. Her best friend, Bridget, keeps quietly to the fringes of their Connecticut Catholic school, watching everything and everyone, but most especially Isabella. In 1957, when the girls graduate, they land coveted spots at a prestigious art history school in northern Italy. There, Bridget discovers she can reinvent herself as anyone she desires…perhaps even someone Isabella could desire in return. But as that glittering year goes on, Bridget begins to suspect Isabella is keeping a secret from her, one that will change the course of their lives forever.

Nell Barber, an expelled Ph.D. candidate in biological science, is exploring the fine line between poison and antidote, alongside her mentor Dr. Joan Kallas. Joan is the hero of Nell’s heart. As Nell slowly fills her empty apartment with poisonous plants to study, she begins to keep a series of notebooks…all dedicated to Joan. In a dazzling and unforgettable voice, Rebecca Dinerstein Knight has written a spellbinding novel of emotional and intellectual intensity.

Enter the halls of the Dalloway School, a centuries-old, ivy-covered boarding school that is haunted by its past and its history of witchcraft. Here, Felicity Morrow and Ellis Haley start digging into the Dalloway Five, five girls (although rumors say they were witches) who died mysteriously on school grounds. But the farther they get in their research, the more history begins to repeat itself, and these two will have to face the darkness in Dalloway—and themselves.

In this feminist retelling of Lord of the Flies, three best friends are living in quarantine at their island boarding school following a mysterious disease that killed most of their classmates and teachers. But when one of the girls goes missing, the rest will venture beyond the campus gates to uncover the truth of their confinement.

In the first book in a brilliant new fantasy series, books that aren’t finished by their authors reside in the Library of the Unwritten in Hell, and it is up to the Librarian to track down any restless characters who emerge from those unfinished stories.

Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a mysterious book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to an ancient library hidden far below the surface of the earth.

On Monday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention, but only four walk out alive. The boy who died is Simon, a bit of an outcast who runs Bayview’s notorious gossip app. On Tuesday, Simon planned to post juicy secrets about the other four students in detention. Does that make all four of them suspects in his murder? Or are they the perfect patsies for a killer who is still on the loose?

When Lena’s father is laid off and injured, she drops out of medical school to help her parents. She is desperate for any job, which is why she accepts a mysterious position with one of Boston’s most elite families, the Verdeaus, working as an assistant to the family doctor. But when she learns that the Verdeau patriarch is responsible for the ruin of her own family, Lena vows to get revenge. An unforgettable tale of family legacy and inheritance, the sacrifices we make to get by in today’s world, and the intoxicating, dangerous power of wealth.

As a young, introverted, queer, Black man, Wallace doesn’t seem to fit in in the Midwestern university town he moved to. Forced to leave his family behind, Wallace finds comfort in keeping people at arm’s length, including his circle of friends. But when a series of escalating confrontations puts him in harm’s way, will he be able to break down his defenses and get help from his support community? Tackling loneliness, sexuality, and friendship, this is dark academia at its best.

An exhilarating novel about a group of students who take revenge on a wunderkind professor after she destroys one of their own — a story of friendship and passion, of competition and envy, of a collective drive to create, sabotage, and love.

Hoping to escape the pain of the recent murder of her best friend, art student Zoe Beech finds herself studying abroad in Berlin. Along with fellow exchange student Hailey Mader, they sublet an apartment from a well-known thriller writer, Beatrice Becks. But as they spend time in the apartment, they start to wonder if they are being watched, could it be they will be the inspiration for Beatrice’s next novel? Other People’s Clothes brilliantly illuminates the sometimes dangerous intensity of female friendships, as well as offers an unforgettable window into millennial life and the lengths people will go to in order to eradicate emotional pain.

When Alexandra Witt joins the faculty at Stonebridge Academy, an elite New England prep school, she’s hoping to put a painful past behind her. Then one of her creative writing assignments generates some disturbing responses from the students and ignites a gender war—with deadly consequences. Lisa Lutz’s blistering, timely tale of revenge and disruption shows us what can happen when silence wins out over decency for too long—and why the scariest threat of all might be the idea that sooner or later, girls will be girls.

Everything in the town of Gold Coast, Long Island is picture perfect. But as high school senior Jill Newman found out the hard way, nothing is perfect. Four years ago, her best friend was killed by her boyfriend, Graham. Since then, Jill has tried to put the past behind her and move on. But when she starts getting text messages proclaiming Graham’s innocence, Jill promises to learn the truth. But digging up old wounds could mean putting her friendships, and her future, in jeopardy.

Jess Walker has come to a concrete campus for one reason: to be taught by the mesmerizing and rebellious Dr. Lorna Clay, whose seminars soon transform Jess’s thinking on life, love, and Agatha Christie. Swept up in Lorna’s thrall, Jess falls in with a tightly knit group of rulebreakers. But the dynamic between the friends begins to darken, until a tragedy shatters their friendships and love affairs, and reveals a terrible secret. Soon Jess must face the question she fears most: what is the true cost of an extraordinary life?

This book follows a group of eccentric geniuses nicknamed “the Blueboods.” These students are incredibly close to their English teacher, but when she turns up dead, they are thrown into a byzantine murder mystery, looking to find a killer. Not only is this book dark and gripping, but the book itself is structured like a class syllabus, complete with footnotes. It doesn’t get more dark academia than this!

No one said high school would be easy, but for Jake Livingston, he’ll be lucky to survive at all. Not only is Jake dealing with racist teachers who treat Jake unfairly, as one of the few Black students at St. Clair Prep, but Jake is also a medium who spends his time ushering ghosts into the afterlife. Jake takes his medium duties in stride, but when Jake is haunted by the ghost of a troubled teen who shot and killed six kids at his local high school before taking his own life, Jake finds himself way over his head.

A year ago a boy was found murdered at a girls’ boarding school. The killer was never caught, and the case was considered closed until sixteen-year-old Holly Mackey arrives at the Dublin Murder Squad’s office with a photo of the boy with the caption: “I KNOW WHO KILLED HIM.” Suddenly the detectives are thrown into the private underworld of teenage girls, which turns out to be more mysterious and more dangerous than the detective imagined.

In a hothouse of collegiate sex and ambition, one young woman mysteriously disappears after a wild campus party, and another becomes obsessed with finding her…