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 41  There are a total of 196 valid entries on the list.
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 "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 "The blood spell"
Star rating for The blood spell
Series:
Ravenspire volume 4.
Average Rating:
3.7 stars
Description:
A dark romantic fantasy inspired by "Cinderella" finds Blue de la Cour, a girl hiding the magic in her blood from a cruel custodian, teaming up with a bride-seeking prince, Prince Kellan who she despises in order to stop a series of disappearances throughout the kingdom.
Book cover for "Crimson bound"
Star rating for Crimson bound
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"Rachelle must protect the king's bastard son while searching for the weapons that will save her world from endless night"--
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.

6. Damsel

Book cover for "Damsel"
Star rating for Damsel
Average Rating:
4.8 stars
Description:
Waking up in the arms of Prince Emory, Ama has no memory of him rescuing her from a dragon's lair, but she soon discovers there is more to the legend of dragons and damsels than anyone knows and she is still in great danger.
Book cover for "Daughter of Sparta"
Star rating for Daughter of Sparta
Series:
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
Guided by the handsome Apollo, Daphne journeys across ancient Greece to recover nine mysterious items stolen from Mount Olympus before the gods lose their powers and throw the mortal world into chaos in this reinterpretation of the Greek myth.
Book cover for "Dorothy Must Die"
Star rating for Dorothy Must Die
Series:
Average Rating:
4.1 stars
Description:

The New York Times bestselling first book in a dark new series that reimagines the Oz saga, from debut author Danielle Paige.

I didn't ask for any of this. I didn't ask to be some kind of hero. But when your whole life gets swept up by a tornado—taking you with it—you have no choice but to go along, you know?

Sure, I've read the books. I've seen the movies. I know the song about the rainbow and the happy little blue birds.

...

9. 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.
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 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.

15. 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 "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,...
Book cover for "The Last Best Kiss"
Star rating for The Last Best Kiss
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:

Jane Austen comes to modern-day Los Angeles in Claire LaZebnik's imaginative take on Persuasion, where seventeen-year-old Anna Eliot finds out whether there's such a thing as a second chance when it comes to first love. Fans of Polly Shulman, Maureen Johnson, Elizabeth Eulberg, Stephanie Perkins, and, of course, Jane Austen will love this irresistibly funny and romantic contemporary tale.

Anna is tired of worrying about what other people

...
Book cover for "My Lady Jane"
Star rating for My Lady Jane
Series:
Lady Janies volume 1.
Average Rating:
4.6 stars
Description:
On the eve of her marriage to a stranger, sixteen-year-old Lady Jane Grey is swept in a conspiracy to usurp the throne from her cousin.
Book cover for "Nobody's Princess"
Star rating for Nobody's Princess
Series:
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:

Helen of Sparta wants to be more than a princess and a pretty face—she wants to be a hero.
The traditions of ancient Sparta would have Helen know her place: a beautiful princess, a loyal daughter, a perfect bride. But Helen wants adventure, and she's not looking back. Not one to count on the gods to take care of her, she sets out to see the world and seek her own fate with steely determination. Her rebellious will makes Helen dangerous

...