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 1 - 20 of 25  There are a total of 196 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Bright ruined things"
Star rating for Bright ruined things
Description:
Growing up on a island where the powerful Prosper family controls both the magic and the spirits who inhibit it, eighteen-year-old Mae longs for magic of her own to impress her best friend Coco and her crush Miles, but when the spirits start inexplicably dying, Mae and her friends start to the unravel the mysteries of the island and a secret from Mae's past. Loosely based on Shakespeare's "The Tempest" and set in the 1920s.
Book cover for "The Circus Rose"
Star rating for The Circus Rose
Description:
A retelling of Snow White and Rose Red in which teenage twins Ivory and Rosie battle evil religious extremists to save their loves and their circus family.
Book cover for "A clash of steel"
Star rating for A clash of steel
Author:
Series:
Description:
Xiang and Anh--ages sixteen and seventeen--hunt the South China Sea for the lost treasure of the fabled pirate queen Zheng Yi Sao.
Book cover for "Cruel beauty"
Star rating for Cruel beauty
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
Betrothed to the demon who rules her country and trained all her life to kill him, seventeen-year-old Nyx Triskelion must now fulfill her destiny and move to the castle to be his wife.
Book cover for "A curse so dark and lonely"
Star rating for A curse so dark and lonely
Series:
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
Eighteen for the three hundred twenty-seventh time, Prince Rhen despairs of breaking the curse that turns him into a beast at the end of each day until feisty Harper enters his life.
Book cover for "Forest of a thousand lanterns"
Star rating for Forest of a thousand lanterns
Series:
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
Beautiful eighteen-year-old Xifeng, raised by a cruel aunt who says the stars destine her to be Empress of Feng Lu, chooses to spurn the man who loves her and exploit the dark magic that can make her dream real.

7. 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.
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 "Jo & Laurie"
Star rating for Jo & Laurie
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"After the publication of her surprise bestseller Little Women, Jo March struggles to write its sequel, while also deciding her true feelings for her best friend, the boy next door, Theodore 'Laurie' Laurence."--
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.

12. Medusa

Book cover for "Medusa"
Star rating for Medusa
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
Exiled to a far-flung island, Medusa has little company except for the snakes adorning her head instead of hair until a beautiful boy named Perseus arrives, distrupting her lonely existence and unleashing desire, love, and betrayal.
Book cover for "Never look back"
Star rating for Never look back
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
A modern retelling of the myth, Orpheus and Eurydice, in which Eury leaves Puerto Rico for the Bronx, haunted by losing all to Hurricane Maria and by evil spirit Ato, and meets a bachata-singing charmer, Pheus.
Book cover for "The other Merlin"
Star rating for The other Merlin
Series:
Description:
"Emry, the daughter of the famed wizard Merlin, must disguise herself as her twin brother to learn magic in Prince Arthur's court, where she finds scandal, danger, and romance"--

15. Pride

Book cover for "Pride"
Star rating for Pride
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"Zuri Benitez has pride. Brooklyn pride, family pride, and pride in her Afro-Latino roots. But pride might not be enough to save her rapidly gentrifying neighborhood from becoming unrecognizable. When the wealthy Darcy family moves in across the street, Zuri wants nothing to do with their two teenage sons, even as her older sister, Janae, starts to fall for the charming Ainsley. She especially can't stand the judgmental and arrogant Darius. Yet as...
Book cover for "Rags & bones"
Star rating for Rags & bones
Description:
An anthology of reimagined classic tales applies unique spins to old favorites, from Saladin Ahmed's interpretation of Sir Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene to Neil Gaiman's twisted adaptation of "Sleeping Beauty."
Book cover for "She's too pretty to burn"
Star rating for She's too pretty to burn
Author:
Average Rating:
2 stars
Description:
When seventeen-year-old Veronica's photograph of her introverted girlfriend goes viral, they are sent into a spiral of fame and lethal danger as they navigate the turbulent waters of their relationship, secrets, acclaim, and the underground San Diego art scene.
Book cover for "The sleeper and the spindle"
Star rating for The sleeper and the spindle
Author:
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
On the eve of her wedding, a young queen sets out to rescue a princess from an enchantment. She casts aside her fine wedding clothes, takes her chain mail and her sword and follows her brave dwarf retainers into the tunnels under the mountain towards the sleeping kingdom.
Book cover for "Stepsister"
Star rating for Stepsister
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
Isabelle is one of Cinderella's ugly stepsisters, who cut off their toes in an attempt to fit into the glass slipper; but there is more to her story than a maimed foot, for the Marquis de la Chance is about to offer her a choice and the opportunity to change her fate--there will be blood and danger, but also the possibility of redemption and triumph, and most of all the chance to find her true self.
Book cover for "Still star-crossed"
Star rating for Still star-crossed
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"After the deaths of Romeo and Juliet, mysterious figures in Verona are determined to reignite the feud between the Montagues and Capulets, so, for the sake of peace, the Prince orders Romeo's best friend Benvolio to marry Juliet's cousin Rosaline"--