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 49  There are a total of 198 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "Across a star-swept sea"
Star rating for Across a star-swept sea
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
Sixteen-year-old Persis Blake struggles to balance her life as a socialite and a secret spy in a future where Regs, or regular people, have power over the Reduced--those genetically engineered or drugged into physical and mental impairments.
Book cover for "Anna K"
Star rating for Anna K
Series:
Anna K volume 1.
Average Rating:
4.7 stars
Description:
Told from multiple viewpoints, while seventeen-year-old Anna K seems above the typical problems of her Manhattan friends and siblings, finding love with a notorious playboy changes everything.
Book cover for "Bad girls never say die"
Star rating for Bad girls never say die
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
In this gender-flipping reimagining of S.E. Hinton's "The Outsiders" set in 1964 Houston, Evie must redefine what it means to be a bad girl and rethink everything she knows about loyalty after she is saved from the unimaginable by a good girl from the "right" side of the tracks.
Book cover for "Being Mary Bennet"
Star rating for Being Mary Bennet
Author:
Description:
"It is a truth universally acknowledged that every bookworm secretly wishes to be Lizzy Bennet from Pride and Prejudice. A less acknowledged truth is that Mary Bennet might be a better fit. For Marnie Barnes, realizing she's a Mary Bennet is devastating. But she's determined to reinvent herself, so she enlists the help of her bubbly roommate and opens up to the world. And between new friends, a very cute boy, and a rescue pup named Sir Pat, Marnie...
Book cover for "A blade so black"
Star rating for A blade so black
Series:
Nightmare-verse volume 1.
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
An ... urban fantasy retelling of Alice in Wonderland... The first time the nightmares came, it nearly cost Alice her life. Now she's trained to battle monstrous creatures in the dark dream realm known as Wonderland with magic weapons and hardcore fighting skills. Yet even warriors have a curfew. Life in real-world Atlanta isn't always so simple, as Alice juggles an overprotective mom, a high-maintenance best friend, and a slipping GPA. Keeping the...
Book cover for "Blanca & Roja"
Star rating for Blanca & Roja
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
The del Cisne girls have never just been sisters; they're also rivals, Blanca as obedient and graceful as Roja is vicious and manipulative. They know that, because of a generations-old spell, their family is bound to a bevy of swans deep in the woods. They know that, one day, the swans will pull them into a dangerous game that will leave one of them a girl, and trap the other in the body of a swan. But when two local boys become drawn into the game,...
Book cover for "Briar Rose"
Star rating for Briar Rose
Author:
Description:
The tale of Sleeping Beauty and the dark tale of the Holocaust twined together in a story of darkness and redemption. Rebecca has always loved listening to her grandmother's stories about Briar Rose. However, the old woman's astonishing and hard-to-believe admission that she "is" Briar Rose sets Rebecca on an unforgettable path of self-discovery that will change her life forever.
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 "Bright smoke, cold fire"
Star rating for Bright smoke, cold fire
Series:
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
Bound by her family's magical heritage to punish their enemies, Juliet nearly loses her life trying to execute her beloved Romeo for killing her cousin, a situation that compels her guardian, Paris, to uncover dark secrets about their walled city.
Book cover for "Cinderella is dead"
Star rating for Cinderella is dead
Average Rating:
3.3 stars
Description:
"Queer black girls team up to overthrow the patriarchy in the former kingdom of Cinderella"--
Book cover for "Dark and deepest red"
Star rating for Dark and deepest red
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"Summer, 1518. A strange sickness sweeps through Strasbourg: women dance in the streets, some until they fall down dead. As rumors of witchcraft spread, suspicion turns toward Lavinia and her family, and Lavinia may have to do the unimaginable to save herself and everyone she loves. Five centuries later, a pair of red shoes seal to Rosella Olivas feet, making her dance uncontrollably. They draw her toward a boy who knows the dancing fevers history...

12. Darling

Book cover for "Darling"
Star rating for Darling
Description:
"On Wendy Darling's first night in Chicago, a boy called Peter appears at her window. He's dizzying, captivating, beautiful--so she agrees to join him for a night on the town. Wendy thinks they're heading to a party, but instead they're soon running in the city's underground. She makes friends--a punk girl named Tinkerbelle and the lost boys Peter watches over. And she makes enemies--the terrifying Detective Hook, and maybe Peter himself, as his sinister...
Book cover for "For darkness shows the stars"
Star rating for For darkness shows the stars
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
"Elliot North fights to save her family's land and her own heart in this post-apocalyptic reimaging of Jane Austen's 'Persuasion'."-- It's been generations since a genetic experiment gone wrong caused the Reduction, decimating humanity and giving rise to a Luddite nobility who outlawed most technology. Elliot North has always known her place in this world. Four years ago she refused to run away with her childhood sweetheart, the servant Kai, choosing...

14. Frost

Book cover for "Frost"
Star rating for Frost
Average Rating:
4.5 stars
Description:
Sixteen-year-old Frost lives in a bombed out apartment in a post-apocalyptic world, with only her pet broot, Romes, and a robot named Bunt, who has her father's memories, for company--but now Romes is dying and her need to find help is forcing her to leave the apartment for the first time in her life, and face the streets which are a hunting ground for rogue robots and the dreaded Eaters.
Book cover for "Geekerella"
Star rating for Geekerella
Series:
Once upon a con volume 1.
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
In a modern version of "Cinderella," geek girl Elle Wittimer enters a cosplay contest behind her stepmother's back and meets teen actor Darien Freeman at a convention cosplay ball.

16. 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 "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 "Golden boys"
Star rating for Golden boys
Series:
Golden boys volume 1.
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"Gabriel, Reese, Sal, and Heath are best friends, bonded in their small rural town by their queerness, their good grades, and their big dreams. They are about to embark on the summer before senior year of high school, where each is going on a new, big adventure, from attending a design school in Paris to interning on Capitol Hill for a U.S. Senator. What will this summer of new experiences and world-expanding travel mean for each of them--and for...
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.