Dark Academia

These twisty novels delve into the dangers of intellectual curiosity, whether from competition, conspiracy, or something else unexpected.

Showing 1 - 18 of 18  There are a total of 208 valid entries on the list.
Book cover for "The idiot"
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Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
"The year is 1995, and email is new. Selin, the daughter of Turkish immigrants, arrives for her freshman year at Harvard. She signs up for classes in subjects she has never heard of, befriends her charismatic and worldly Serbian classmate Svetlana, and, almost by accident, begins corresponding with Ivan, an older mathematics student from Hungary. Selin may have barely spoken to Ivan, but with each email they exchange, the act of writing seems to take...
Book cover for "The world cannot give"
Star rating for The world cannot give
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"When the shy, sensitive Laura Stearns arrives at St. Dunstan's Academy in Maine, she dreams that life there will echo her favorite novel, All Before Them, the sole surviving piece of writing by Byronic "prep school prophet" (and St. Dunstan's alum) Sebastian Webster, who died at 19, fighting in the Spanish Civil War. She soon finds the intensity she is looking for among the insular, Webster-worshipping members of the school's cultic chapel choir:...
Book cover for "The rule of four"
Star rating for The rule of four
Average Rating:
3.2 stars
Description:
Princeton. Good Friday, 1999. On the eve of graduation, two friends are a hairsbreadth from solving the mysteries of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a Renaissance text that has baffled scholars for centuries. Famous for its hypnotic power over those who study it, the five-hundred-year-old Hypnerotomachia may finally reveal its secrets--to Tom Sullivan, whose father was obsessed with the book, and Paul Harris, whose future depends on it. As the deadline...
Book cover for "The Belles"
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"Belles Never Tell... It's 1951 at the secluded Bellerton College, and Deena Williams is doing her best to blend in with her wealthy and perfectly groomed peers. Infamous for its strict rules and illustrious prestige, attending Bellerton could be a life-changing experience for Deena-and she refuses to let this opportunity pass her by. She quickly forms an alliance with the five other freshmen on her floor, including Bellerton legacy and natural leader,...
Book cover for "The divines"
Star rating for The divines
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Average Rating:
2 stars
Description:
"This compulsively readable literary debut set in a secluded boarding school explores the intoxicating, destructive relationships between teenage girls."--Provided by publisher.
Book cover for "The magicians"
Star rating for The magicians
Average Rating:
3.5 stars
Description:
Haboring secret preoccupations with a magical land he read about in a childhood fantasy series, Quentin Coldwater is unexpectedly admitted into an exclusive college of magic and rigorously educated in modern sorcery.
Book cover for "The orchard"
Star rating for The orchard
Description:
"A commanding debut and a poignant coming-of-age story about a devout Jewish high school student whose plunge into the secularized world threatens everything he knows of himself"--

8. Heaven

Book cover for "Heaven"
Star rating for Heaven
Average Rating:
4 stars
Description:
"Hailed as a bold foray into new literary territory, Kawakami's novel is told in the voice of a 14-year-old student subjected to relentless torment for having a lazy eye. Instead of resisting, the boy chooses to suffer in complete resignation. The only person who understands what he is going through is a female classmate who suffers similar treatment at the hands of her tormenters. These raw and realistic portrayals of bullying are counterbalanced...
Book cover for "The incendiaries"
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Average Rating:
1.5 stars
Description:
In this "novel of violence, love, faith, and loss, ... a young woman at an elite American university is drawn into acts of domestic terrorism by a cult tied to North Korea"--Amazon.com.
Book cover for "Tell me I'm an artist"
Star rating for Tell me I'm an artist
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"At her San Francisco art school, Joey enrolls in a film elective that requires her to complete what seems like a straightforward assignment: create a self-portrait. Joey inexplicably decides to remake Wes Anderson's Rushmore despite having never seen the movie. As Tell Me I'm An Artist unfolds over the course of the semester, the assignment hangs over her as she struggles to exist in a well-heeled world that is hugely different from any she has known....
Book cover for "These violent delights"
Star rating for These violent delights
Average Rating:
5 stars
Description:
"When Paul enters university in early 1970s Pittsburgh, it's with the hope of moving past the recent death of his father. Sensitive, insecure, and incomprehensible to his grieving family, Paul feels isolated and alone. When he meets the worldly Julian in his freshman ethics class, Paul is immediately drawn to his classmate's effortless charm. Paul sees Julian as his sole intellectual equal--an ally against the conventional world he finds so suffocating....
Book cover for "Quicksand"
Star rating for Quicksand
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
"A mass shooting has taken place at a prep school in Stockholm's wealthiest suburb. Maja Norberg is eighteen years old and on trial for her involvement in the massacre where her boyfriend and best friend were killed. When the novel opens, Maja has spent nine excruciating months in jail awaiting trial. Now the time has come for her to enter the courtroom. But how did Maja, the good girl next door who was popular and excelled at school, become the most...
Book cover for "Belladonna"
Star rating for Belladonna
Description:
"For readers of Elena Ferrante and Sally Rooney, a lush, coming-of-age novel set in 1950s Italy that stares into the heart of longing and at the friendships that have the power to save and destroy us. Isabella is beautiful, inscrutable, and popular. Her best friend, Bridget, keeps quietly to the fringes of their Connecticut Catholic school, watching everything and everyone, but most especially Isabella. In 1957, when the girls graduate, they land...
Book cover for "Prep"
Star rating for Prep
Average Rating:
3.4 stars
Description:
During the late 1980s, fourteen-year-old Lee Fiora leaves behind her close-knit, middle-class Indiana family to enroll in an elite co-ed boarding school in Massachusetts, becoming a shrewd observer of, and eventually a participant in, their rituals and customs.
Book cover for "Real life"
Star rating for Real life
Average Rating:
4.3 stars
Description:
"A novel of rare emotional power that excavates the social intricacies of a late-summer weekend -- and a lifetime of buried pain. Almost everything about Wallace, an introverted African-American transplant from Alabama, is at odds with the lakeside Midwestern university town where he is working toward a biochem degree. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a wary distance even within his own circle of friends -- some dating each other,...
Book cover for "The St. Ambrose School for Girls"
Star rating for The St. Ambrose School for Girls
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
"When Sarah Taylor arrives at the exclusive St. Ambrose School, she's carrying more baggage than just what fits in her suitcase. She knows she's not like the other girls-if the shabby, all-black, non-designer clothes don't give that away, the bottle of lithium hidden in her desk drawer sure does. St. Ambrose's queen bee, Greta Stanhope, picks Sarah as a target from day one-the most popular, powerful, horrible girl at school is relentless in making...
Book cover for "A little life"
Star rating for A little life
Average Rating:
3.8 stars
Description:
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE
A...
Book cover for "We wish you luck"
Star rating for We wish you luck
Average Rating:
3 stars
Description:
"It doesn't take long for the students on Fielding campus to become obsessed with Hannah, Leslie and Jimmy. The three graduate students are mysterious, inaccessible, and brilliant. Leslie, glamorous and brash, has declared that she wants to write erotica and make millions. Hannah is quietly confident, loyal, elegantly beautiful, and the person they all want to be; and Jimmy is a haunted genius with no past. After Simone - young, bestselling author...