YA Classic Retellings

YA adaptations or stories inspired from classic tales including fairy tales, fables, and classical literature. Not a complete or exhaustive list. *The Young Adult Collection is made up of books for a wide age range (12-18 years old) and includes a variety of different topics and interests. Not all titles will be appropriate for all readers.*

Showing 21 - 40 of 73  There are a total of 196 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Endless water, starless sky"
Star rating for Endless water, starless sky
Series:
Description:
In the last days of the world, the walls of Viyara are still falling and the dead are rising faster than ever. Juliet is trapped, ordered by Lord Luco of the Mahyanai to sacrifice the remaining members of her family, the Catresou, to stave off the end fo the world. Though they're certain his plan is useless, Juliet and her former friend Runajo must comply tie Lord Ineo's wishes unless they can discover a different, darker path to protecting Viyara....
Book cover for "Epically earnest"
Star rating for Epically earnest
Author:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Jane Worthing's claim to fame is that she was one of the first viral internet sensations...discovered as a one-year-old in an oversized Gucci bag by her adopted father in a Poughkeepsie train station. Now in her senior year of high school, Janey is questioning whether she wants to look for her bio family due to a loving, but deeply misguided push from her best friend Algie, while also navigating an all-consuming crush on his cousin, the beautiful,...
Book cover for "The fall"
Star rating for The fall
Description:
A retelling of Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Fall of the House of Usher' in which Madeline and her twin brother, Roderick, suffer from the Usher family illness but she hears the House talking to her, filling her dreams, controlling her actions, and ensuring shenever leaves the property.
Book cover for "Flame in the mist"
Star rating for Flame in the mist
Series:
Average Rating:
4.9 stars
Description:
The daughter of a prominent samurai, Mariko is targeted by bandits who wish to stop her arranged marriage, a situation that compels her to infiltrate the gang, disguised as a boy, to track down the person responsible for the target on her back.

25. Fresh

Book cover for "Fresh"
Star rating for Fresh
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Elliot McHugh enters her first year of college not knowing what to expect but after parties, new friends, and tough tests she begins to learn a lot about herself and what is important.

26. Gilded

Book cover for "Gilded"
Star rating for Gilded
Series:
Gilded duology volume 1.
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
"Long ago cursed by the god of lies, a poor miller's daughter has developed a talent for spinning stories that are fantastical and spellbinding and entirely untrue. Or so everyone believes. When one of Serilda's outlandish tales draws the attention of the sinister Erlking and his undead hunters, she finds herself swept away into a grim world where ghouls and phantoms prowl the earth and hollow-eyed ravens track her every move. The king orders Serilda...
Book cover for "Heart of the impaler"
Star rating for Heart of the impaler
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Beneath the shadow of impending war in fifteenth-century Wallachia, Ilona Csáki is betrothed to Prince Mircea, as her feelings blossom for her fiance's cousin Andrei and younger brother Vlad Dracula.

28. Hood

Book cover for "Hood"
Star rating for Hood
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
Sixteen-year-old Isabelle learns that she is the daughter of Robin Hood when her mother, Marien, sends her from their priory to get an urgent message to her father, aided by the Merry Men.
Book cover for "House of salt and sorrows"
Star rating for House of salt and sorrows
Series:
Average Rating:
3.6 stars
Description:
On a remote island estate, Annaleigh Thaumas, the sixth-born of twelve sisters, enlists the aid of an alluring stranger to unravel the family curse before it claims her life.
Book cover for "The initial insult"
Star rating for The initial insult
Series:
Initial insult volume 1.
Description:
"Tress Montors family used to mean something until she didnt have a family anymore. When her parents disappeared seven years ago while driving her best friend home, Tress lost everything...Felicity Turnado has it all: looks, money, and a secret. One misstep could send her tumbling from the top of the social ladder, and shes worked hard to make everyone forget that she was with the Montors the night they disappeared...But Tress has a plan. A Halloween...
Book cover for "Into the bloodred woods"
Star rating for Into the bloodred woods
Description:
On his deathbed King Tyran divides his land between his twin children, first-born Ursula, a werebear, and Albrecht; but Albrecht wants it all and makes war on his sister, killing her people and the werebeasts, becoming a tyrant to his own kingdom--but their family history is far more complicated and mysterious than he knows, and Ursula has powerful allies in the living forest that surrounds their lands, including her aunt Esme who has been in hiding...
Book cover for "Into the bright open"
Star rating for Into the bright open
Series:
Description:
In this queer reimaging of The secret garden, fifteen-year-old orphan Mary sets off to live in the Georgian Bay wilds where she discovers family secrets both wonderful and horrifying.
Book cover for "Into the heartless wood"
Star rating for Into the heartless wood
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
"Deep in the wood lives a witch queen and her eight tree siren daughters. For centuries, they have harvested souls to feed the heartless tree, using its power to grow their ever reaching kingdom of ash, birch, and oak. Owen Merrick lives at the edge of the forest, mapping the stars for the king in his father's observatory. For years, he has resisted venturing over the garden wall, until one day he must enter the woods to find his missing sister. But...
Book cover for "The ivory key"
Star rating for The ivory key
Series:
Description:
Since the murder of the maharani of Ashoka--the country that controls all magic--the relationships between the royal siblings have fractured. At only 18, Vira has ascended to the throne, a role few in her council believe her capable of. Meanwhile, her twin brother, Ronak, is plotting to break free from a tactful marriage and taking their half-brother, Kaleb, (wrongfully imprisoned for the maharani's assassination) with him. The siblings' unease comes...
Book cover for "Labyrinth lost"
Star rating for Labyrinth lost
Series:
Brooklyn brujas volume 1.
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
Alex is a bruja and the most powerful witch in her family. But she's hated magic ever since it made her father disappear into thin air. When a curse she performs to rid herself of magic backfires and her family vanishes, she must travel to Los Lagos, a land in-between as dark as Limbo and as strange as Wonderland, to get her family back.
Book cover for "Lakesedge"
Star rating for Lakesedge
Series:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"When Violeta Graceling and her younger brother Arien arrive at the haunted Lakesedge estate, they expect to find a monster. Leta knows the terrifying rumors about Rowan Sylvanan, who drowned his entire family when he was a boy. But neither the estate nor the monster are what they seem. As Leta falls for Rowan, she discovers he is bound to the Lord Under, the sinister death god lurking in the black waters of the lake. A creature to whom Leta is inexplicably...
Book cover for "The language of thorns"
Star rating for The language of thorns
Average Rating:
4.6 stars
Description:
Travel to Grishnaverse, a world of dark bargains struck by moonlight, of haunted towns and hungry woods, of talking beasts and gingerbread golems, where a young mermaid's voice can summon deadly storms and where a river might do a lovestruck boy's bidding but only for a terrible price. Inspired by myth, fairy tale, and folklore, author Leigh Bardugo has crafted [an] ... atmospheric collection of short stories filled with betrayals, revenge, sacrifice,...
Book cover for "The last true poets of the sea"
Star rating for The last true poets of the sea
Author:
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
Inspired loosely by Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, teenaged Violet is shipped off to Maine after her brother's hospitalization, where she searches for the lost shipwreck that her great-great grandmother survived and for answers about her family's long struggle with mental illness, all while falling in love.
Book cover for "Lifestyles of gods & monsters"
Star rating for Lifestyles of gods & monsters
Description:
In a reality TV retelling of the myth of the Minotaur, seventeen-year-old Ariadne fights to save her brother, Asterion, and make her own destiny in a world of celebrity, surveillance, and feigned authenticity.
Book cover for "The mirror season"
Star rating for The mirror season
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
After Ciela and Lock are sexually assaulted at the same party, they develop a cautious friendship through her family's possibly-magical pastelería and his secret forest of otherworldly trees.