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 84  There are a total of 196 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Ella enchanted"
Star rating for Ella enchanted
Series:
Ella enchanted volume 1.
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
In this novel based on the story of Cinderella, Ella struggles against the childhood curse that forces her to obey any order given to her.
Book cover for "Entwined"
Star rating for Entwined
Average Rating:
4.4 stars
Description:
Azalea is trapped. Just when she should feel that everything is before her . . . beautiful gowns, dashing suitors, balls filled with dancing . . . it’s taken away. All of it.
     The Keeper understands. He’s trapped, too, held for centuries within the walls of the palace. And so he extends an invitation. Every night, Azalea and her eleven sisters may step through the enchanted passage in their room to dance in...

23. Eon

Book cover for "Eon"
Star rating for Eon
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
Read Alison Goodman's blogs and other content on the Penguin Community.

Eon—the award-winning crossover fantasy that soars!

Sixteen-year-old Eon has a dream, and a mission. For years, he's been studying sword-work and magic, toward one end. He and his master hope that he will be chosen as a Dragoneye-an apprentice to one of the twelve energy dragons of good fortune.

But Eon has a dangerous secret. He is actually

...
Book cover for "Everneath"
Star rating for Everneath
Series:
Everneath novels volume 0001
Average Rating:
4.8 stars
Description:

Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath. Now she's returned—to her old life, her family, her boyfriend—before she's banished back to the underworld . . . this time forever. She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can't find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.

Nikki longs to spend these precious months forgetting

...
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.
Book cover for "Genuine fraud"
Star rating for Genuine fraud
Author:
Average Rating:
3.4 stars
Description:
Told through flashbacks, this is the story of best friends Jule and Imogen, orphaned outcasts who'll do almost anything to attain a happy, wealthy life.

27. 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 "Girl, serpent, thorn"
Star rating for Girl, serpent, thorn
Average Rating:
4.2 stars
Description:
Soraya, a princess cursed to be poisonous to the touch, has lived eighteen years in the shadows but as her twin brother's wedding approaches, she faces choices with unimaginable consequences.
Book cover for "The girl who fell beneath the sea"
Star rating for The girl who fell beneath the sea
Author:
Average Rating:
3.9 stars
Description:
In this retelling of the Korean legend The tale of Shim Cheong, sixteen-year-old Mina is swept away to the Spirit Realm, where, assisted by a motley crew of demons, gods, and lesser spirits, she sets out to awaken the sleeping Sea God and save her homeland and family from deadly storms.
Book cover for "Girls made of snow and glass"
Star rating for Girls made of snow and glass
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
This feminist fantasy reimagining of the Snow White fairytale traces the relationship of two young women who are doomed to be rivals. Only one can win all, while the other must lose everything unless both can find a way to reshape themselves and their story.
Book cover for "The Goddess Test"
Star rating for The Goddess Test
Average Rating:
4.7 stars
Description:


It's always been just Kate and her mom--and her mother is dying. Her last wish? To move back to her childhood home. So Kate's going to start at a new school with no friends, no other family and the fear her mother won't live past the fall.

Then she meets Henry. Dark. Tortured. And mesmerizing. He claims to be Hades, god of the Underworld--and if she accepts his bargain, he'll keep her mother alive while Kate tries to pass seven tests.

Kate...
Book cover for "The goose girl"
Star rating for The goose girl
Series:
Books of Bayern volume 1.
Average Rating:
4.8 stars
Description:
On her way to marry a prince she's never met, Princess Anidori is betrayed by her guards and her lady-in-waiting and must become a goose girl to survive until she can reveal her true identity and reclaim the crown that is rightfully hers.
Book cover for "The healer's apprentice"
Star rating for The healer's apprentice
Series:
Hagenheim volume 1.
Average Rating:
4.8 stars
Description:
In this story loosely based on the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale, seventeen-year-old Rose, a healer's apprentice, falls in love with the betrothed Lord Hamlin, who is seeking the sorcerer who cursed his future bride.
Book cover for "Heartless"
Star rating for Heartless
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
In this prequel to Alice in Wonderland, Cath would rather open a bakery and marry for love than accept a proposal from the King of Hearts, especially after meeting the handsome and mysterious court jester.
Book cover for "Her dark curiosity"
Star rating for Her dark curiosity
Series:
Description:
Juliet struggles to forget Dr. Moreau's horrific legacy only to confront what she fears is one of her father's murderous creations and her own worsening illness.
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.

37. Hunted

Book cover for "Hunted"
Star rating for Hunted
Average Rating:
4.6 stars
Description:
Follows the experiences of an aristocrat's daughter, Yeva, who tracks a mysterious woodland creature her father has become obsessed with and that stands at the center of his failing sanity.
Book cover for "Kingdom of the Wicked"
Star rating for Kingdom of the Wicked
Average Rating:
4.6 stars
Description:
"Emilia and her twin sister Vittoria are streghe - witches who live secretly among humans, avoiding notice and persecution. One night, Vittoria misses dinner service at the family's renowned Sicilian restaurant. Emilia soon finds the body of her beloved twin...desecrated beyond belief. Devastated, Emilia sets out to find her sister's killer and to seek vengeance at any cost-even if it means using dark magic that's been long forbidden. Then Emilia...
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 "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,...