Best dark academia books to read this summer

[Seb83]

Dark academia as a genre and aesthetic has been running strong for a few years but the book recommendations keep recycling the same five titles. If you have read The Secret History and If We Were Villains, which direction do you go next? Looking for recommendations beyond the obvious starting points, including anything that came out in the last year or two

[Sentinel96]

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik if you want dark academia with actual fantasy mechanics underneath it rather than just vibes. The magic system is brutal and smart

[FairDos96]

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake for competitive magic school energy with morally ambiguous characters. It gets messy in the later books but the first one is genuinely gripping

[HiggsField10]

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M Danforth for lesbian gothic horror at a New England girls school in alternating timelines. It is long and strange and wonderful

[DarkEnergy]

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo for something darker and more adult. Secret societies at Yale with actual occult consequences. It does not romanticise the setting the way lighter dark academia does

[MJF]

If you want something recent, The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo just came out and returns to the historical magic setting she does so well

[Gareth_11]

Bunny by Mona Awad if you want the aesthetic taken to an uncomfortable satirical extreme. It is aware of exactly what it is doing and it is unsettling in the best way